Visual Rhetoric on the Death Penalty

           The two presentations one being “No Seconds” and the other being “The Last Meal Project”, both on the death penalty were both intriguing, and interesting to me. Before reading the presentation I didn’t know there was 35 states that still used the death penalty.  Both of the presentations use rhetorical statements that also make the arguments better in a sense. The authors of both of the presentations made clear statements, but the presentations could both be improved.

            In the presentation "No Seconds" by Henry Hargraves he does a very good job at the interesting layout that really catches your eye right when you look at it. Hargraves, makes the presentation short and sweet. He doesn’t talk much about content or facts about the death penalty like “The Last Meal Project” does.  In return Hargraves makes it seem as if the inmates were given a better meal before death because his pictures of the last meals look more appetizing making it look like they are receiving better treatment putting a huge price tag on the inmates spending limits. This is a use of visual rhetoric. Hargraves also only explains the facts of the foods the inmates had chosen and what they had done with the food. Except for the short introduction at the beginning of the presentation.

            In the presentation “The Last Meal Project” the visual layout is different than “No Seconds” the old pieces of paper used in “No Seconds” make it look more of a serious matter. The pictures look way less appetizing as well.  Almost as if they’re thinking “well you’re about to die anyway who cares?” and give them the food they ask for but a low quality version of it.  The author defiantly has more content facts in this presentation than the other; having a small paragraph every couple slides about lethal injection, the cost of it, how many states use the death penalty while also having many more facts.

            The authors of both presentations could have made the arguments of the death penalty listed through facts of the text instead of many pictures, but to me it was more interesting to read the text through the pictures. In reviewing both of the presentations many times I think that “The Last Meal Project” does a better job because of the text, it explains more about the death penalty while still having visual rhetoric of the inmates and the food that they had chose. I think that if the authors put both of their work together the presentation would be more organized, having the layout, the content and the visuals.