Letter to Myself

Dear Paige,

Today is Mother’s Day, the one day that children with loving mother’s are pretty much required to show love and appreciation for everything mom’s do. Despite any bad things that have happened in your life the past few days, you have got to hold it together today, because freaking out on your mom on Mother’s Day is something you might come to regret. I’m writing this letter to you, my past self, to prevent unnecessary words spewing out of your mouth which will only end up hurting your mom’s feelings. Since you have worked as a banquet server for the past two days, this third day in a row will be much more hard and hectic than you thought. You got home from work at 2 a.m. last night and must go in at 9 a.m. this morning for a mother’s day brunch. These odd and out of the normal hours will come to cause potential moody behavior, and sore feet later in the day.

To prevent nasty comments from flying out of your mouth, here is a new plan of approach that you should try for taking on the day. Go in to work this morning with a positive attitude, despite the unfortunate scheduling and lack of sleep you got last night, this first step is imperative. Attitude will mean everything in the long run. Smile at the fact that you have a job; be happy that you will get pay for the work you have to do today. Make sure you compose this happy attitude in hopes that it may actually become how you truly feel about working today. Once you are at work, continually check to make sure you are maintaining a positive attitude while elaborating on the process. The next thing to do is avoid physically and emotionally strenuous activity for as long as you can. Do these by letting someone else move the eight foot tables across the room and instead choose to polish the silverware. Keep as much energy in your body as you can, sit down while polishing the silverware and make sure to rest your feet from standing, walking and going up and down the stairs so much. Once work is over, and you have finished serving all the tables, and cleaning up the banquet room, clock out and walk to your car. Next, it is very important for you to take off your shoes once you get in your car. The tennis shoes have become very uncomfortable over the past few days, wearing them for hours after hours. You want to prevent any strain on your feet-complaining about the pain will only cause you trouble later on. Once you have driven home, take a moment to yourself. Embrace the peace and quiet and remind yourself that it is mother’s day and of all that she has done for you. After all of that, go inside and greet mom with a smile and a “happy mother’s day!”. Showing your genuine care towards her will make her happy. In order to be genuine, do not complain about work, and especially don’t complain about how sore your feet are. If you complain about sore feet, mom will continually talk to you about how you need better shoes, and on and on she will go, and then suddenly “LEAVE ME ALONE” will burst out of your mouth before you have a chance to bite your tongue. Refrain from saying anything harsh towards your mother on Mother’s Day, otherwise you will feel guilty all day long. Finally, to prevent further outbursts from happening, spend the rest of the day doing things that are enjoyable and time well spent, in order to keep your mood up. Anything that will put off a negative attitude forming is the key to success in this step.

At the end of today, as long as you remember to do what I said above, Mother’s Day shall remain intact. Be positive, keep calm and collected, sustain as much energy as possible, remind yourself how much you appreciate your mom, keep all complaints to yourself, and spend the rest of the day doing things that keep you happy. Bite your tongue when it irrationally spits out something harsh, and at all costs, do not ruin mom’s day!

Sincerely,

 Paige Tigner

Redesign Reflection

This assignment excited me because the guidelines required some creativity, in order to change who the ad would appeal to, and how it would pull that off. I was able to create a whole new ad for a different audience than the original. It was different and a new kind of assignment than I have ever been assigned to do before. The only worry I found with this assignment in the beginning was finding an ad that I could change for a new audience. Class was helpful with this area, during peer brainstorming.

Initially I came to class with the idea of redesigning a Bose stereo advertisement; however, this ad featured a lot of text and would have been too much information to consolidate for a new audience. With help from my peer group and teacher-student interaction I decided that the Bose ad was too general and we found the Eddie Bauer down winter coat advertisement instead. This ad was chosen because it had a relatively simple design, the product was easily determined, and the ad had appeals that were being used to reach its audience. Since the ad featured all of these things I decided it would be a good ad to try and redesign.

The advertisement that I ended up with to redesign was an Eddie Bauer down winter coat advertisement. I had trouble discovering an alternative audience for this ad; none seemed different enough from the original. So, to solve that problem I began delving deeper into whom the original ad was really appealing to, instead of saying it appealed to women, I went more specific saying it appealed to athletic women.  After I did that, it was easier to determine a new audience of middle-aged, business-men for the redesign. The design of the new advertisement came straight out of a picture in my mind. I continually looked at the original ad and gained inspiration from some of the simplistic and timeless qualities that it carries. A picture that included my new audience within it began to form in my head. To remember all of the details, I jotted down my ideas on paper as they came and expanded on them as I wrote my essay on the computer.

As I began writing my essay I was challenged, as always, with getting all of my thoughts down on paper in the most organized and sensible way. I found many details and aspects in the original ad that were rhetorical appeals, and I was challenged with getting all of them on paper in a way that made sense. To avoid sporadic and choppy thoughts throughout the description of the original and redesigned rhetorical appeals, I slowed down and really thought about the ways the ad was appealing to the viewers. I decided which details thoroughly did what each rhetorical appeal is meant to do, and described those details in full to show that I understood the purpose of pathos, logos, and ethos. One other challenge I ran into, was finding a way to include logos in my redesigned advertisement. The original did not have any statistical fact about the product, nor did it include science and math, so I had trouble producing a fact that seemed believable for my new audience.

This assignment was similar to an art assignment in my opinion. It required us to design a new advertisement for a new audience based off of an original. I took many art classes throughout high school and treated this assignment similar to the assignments I did in art class. I was able to use the original ad as a resource for the creation of my redesign. I found myself feeding off of the colors, text, and overall mood that the original ad had in order to fully develop my redesigned advertisement. I really enjoyed the creativity that this assignment allowed for. It gave us freedom to create something on our own, yet had boundaries that helped us write successful essays.

After the fact, I feel like I have a better understanding of what advertisements are capable of besides just promoting a product. I learned that they often use emotions to strike interest in viewers, and facts and logic to allude to the logical and moralistic sides of people. These things are used to promote the product, but also can influence the audience in ways that we may not even realize sometimes. Evaluating the rhetorical appeals through this redesign assignment has helped me grasp how pathos, logos and ethos make a difference in an advertisement as well as on the people who view it. When seeing new commercials and ads in magazines I feel like I can identify so much more detail than I could before that give clues about the brand/company, and what their goals are.

If I were to go back and re-do this essay I feel like I could improve some areas that are weak. I would try physically drawing out my redesigned advertisement so that I could see it, rather than pull it all from my memory during the writing process. Although I am happy with the way my redesign turned out, I would like to know if actually drawing or sketching it would benefit my description in any way.