{"id":1283,"date":"2025-12-23T16:28:02","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T16:28:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/journal\/?p=1283"},"modified":"2025-12-23T21:05:02","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T21:05:02","slug":"issue-59-3-sensational-design","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/journal\/issue-59-3-sensational-design\/","title":{"rendered":"Sensational Design: Layout and Display Typography in the Visual Rhetoric of Information Disorder"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"sitecontainer\">\n<div class=\"pagecontainer\">\n<article class=\"vj-article\">\n<div class=\"articlesidebar\">\n<h5>Issue 59.3<\/h5>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/journal\/issue-59-3-editorial\/\">Word | Image | Space | Materiality | Experience<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/journal\/issue-59-3-legibility-readability\/\">Beyond (Type)Face Value: A Systematic Literature Review Examining Design Factors Influencing the Legibility and Readability of Typography<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/journal\/issue-59-3-bilingual-cover-design\/\">Scripts in Dialogue: Reinterpreting Visible Language Covers through Bilingual Design Workshops in Kuwait<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/journal\/issue-59-3-hypertangible-novel\/\">Constructing the Hypertangible Novel: Writing and Design as Process<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Sensational Design: Layout and Display Typography in the Visual Rhetoric of Information Disorder<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/journal\/issue-59-3-textile-tickets\/\">The Visual Language of Textile Tickets in 20th-Century British India: A Collection from B. Taylor and Co.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/journal\/issue-59-3-ar-campus-wayfinding\/\">Augmented Reality for Campus Wayfinding: Enhancing Navigation Efficiency and Student Social Engagement \u2014 A Case Study of Leeds University Union<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/journal\/issue-59-3-james-mosley\/\">Professor James Mosley, a Memoir<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/journal\/issue-59-3-michael-twyman\/\">Professor Michael Twyman<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/Issue-59-3\/VL-59.3-Full-Issue.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Download Issue 59.3 \u27a4<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"articlecontent\">\n<h1>Sensational Design: Layout and Display Typography in the Visual Rhetoric of Information Disorder<\/h1>\n<h3>Anna Kallen Talley<\/h3>\n<h4 style=\"line-height: 1.5;\">Design, Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh, UK (anna.talley[at]ed.ac.uk)<\/h4>\n<div class=\"abstractbox\">\n<p><span class=\"smallblueheading\">Abstract:<\/span>  Political communication in the United States today is often characterized by \u2018information disorder\u2019. However, studies of information disorder do not take into account the role of design in contributing to this phenomenon. Through a visual analysis of American political communication, specifically 19th-century sensational newspapers and 21st-century post-factual websites, this paper addresses gaps in current studies by analyzing two design elements: layout and display typography. In doing so, this study demonstrates how it is possible to use visual analysis to uncover the various presentations of the visual rhetoric that characterizes information disorder. This paper begins by situating sensational design within literature on design theory and visual rhetoric, sensationalism, and political aesthetics. The paper then examines layout and display typography in case studies of American political news from both 19th-century sensational newspapers and 21st-century post-factual news websites, two periods of \u2018information disorder\u2019 in American media, to understand how the visual rhetoric of \u2018sensational design\u2019 manifests differently in the two eras of \u2018information disorder\u2019. The paper concludes with a discussion of how layout and typography \u2018act\u2019 as elements of visual rhetoric, how design can be incorporated into current conceptions of political aesthetics, and the implications of such a relationship.\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"keywordsbox\">\n<p><span class=\"smallblueheading\">Keywords:<\/span> display typography; layout; newspaper design; sensational design; visual rhetoric<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a class=\"viewarticlebtn\" href=\"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/Issue-59-3\/VL-59-3-Talley-8849.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Download PDF<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"articlepdfviewer\">\n<object \ndata=\"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/Issue-59-3\/VL-59-3-Talley-8849.pdf\" type=\"application\/pdf\" width=\"100%\" height=\"100%\"><br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/Issue-59-3\/VL-59-3-Talley-8849.pdf\" width=\"100%\" height=\"100%\" style=\"border: none;\"><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/object>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"authorbox\">\n<p><span class=\"smallblueheading\">Author<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Anna Kallen Talley<\/strong>  is a researcher of modern and contemporary design cultures, history and theory. She has recently defended her PhD thesis in Design at the University of Edinburgh, and she holds an MA in Design History and Material Culture from the V&#038;A\/Royal College of Art. Her work focuses on the relationship between communication design and political theory, political economy, and digital objects.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><a class=\"viewarticlebtn\" href=\"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/Issue-59-3\/VL-59-3-Talley-8849.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Download PDF<\/a><br \/>\n<\/article>\n<div class=\"articlecitebox\">\n<div>\n<p class=\"blueurllink\">DOI being generated<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cite this article:<\/strong><br \/>Talley, A. K. (2025). Sensational design: Layout and display typography in the visual rhetoric of information disorder. <i>Visible Language<\/i>, 59(3), 348\u2013378. https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/journal\/issue-59-3-sensational-design\/<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>First published online May 22, 2025. \u00a9 2025 Visible Language \u2014 this article is open access, published under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.<\/p>\n<p><pre>https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/journal<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"vlconsortiumheading\"><strong>Visible Language Consortium:<\/strong><\/span><br \/>University of Leeds (UK)<br \/>University of Cincinnati (USA)<br \/>North Carolina State University (USA)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Issue 59.3 Word | Image | Space | Materiality | Experience Beyond (Type)Face Value: A Systematic Literature Review Examining Design Factors Influencing the Legibility and Readability of Typography Scripts in Dialogue: Reinterpreting Visible Language Covers through Bilingual Design Workshops in Kuwait Constructing the Hypertangible Novel: Writing and Design as Process Sensational Design: Layout and Display &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/journal\/issue-59-3-sensational-design\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Sensational Design: Layout and Display Typography in the Visual Rhetoric of Information Disorder&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-issue-59-3","category-research-article","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1283"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1360,"href":"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1283\/revisions\/1360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}