Genres in Technical/Professional Writing

For my internship at Krimson Kultuur, I have been designing business cards and info cards for the store. Design is an element found in all forms of technical writing. Each document a company or person creates must have some kind of design that holds them all together. For example, a handbook will usually contain the same color scheme and layout throughout in order to create a uniform look. This is design at work. In this sense, you can think of design as an element present throughout all forms of the document. It will dictate layout, style, visuals, and even the printed product.

In terms of the specific documents I have been designing for Krimson Kultuur, I have been making sure that each of the documents has similar visuals and style. The documents share a crimson and gold color scheme (pantone 186 and 116, respectively) and the same typography. This is gives the different documents used for advertising an attractive and uniform look. There’s no confusing one of business cards or info cards with that of another store when a person can see the similarities in design.

Carolyn Miller’s “Genre as Social Action” says that genre represents action and the action must involve situation and motive. Each of these designs that I am creating is supposed to give the audience a subtle cue to respond to. It is not a stretch so say that the purpose of a design is to create a response in the intended audience. By that standard, the motive of the designs I am creating is supposed to generate some kind of business to Krimson Kultuur.

In Anis Bawarshi and Mary Jo Reiff’s “Rhetorical Genre Studies,” they say, “Within disciplinary contexts, for instance, genres normalize activities and practices, enabling community members to participate in these activities and practices in fairly predictable, familiar ways in order to get things done. At the same time, though, genres are dynamic because as their conditions of use change… genres must change along with them or risk becoming obsolete.” Design is possibly one of the most persistent and dynamic genres. It gives people the needed feeling of familiarity and is able to adapt into many different forms. Like I mentioned earlier, a handbook will show all the different elements of design throughout. The visuals, style, and layout of any employee handbook should be easily recognizable with the branding of the company. An instruction manual for a video game console will hold style, visuals, and layouts that apply to the company that created that console.