Reconsidering Ad Design Practices and Visual Aesthetics in Social Media Interactive Spaces: Toward a Conceptual Framework

Media shape the way ads are designed and aesthetically appreciated. While advertising design is well studied in traditional print media, less attention has been paid to its changing nature, visual design aesthetics, and design practices in social media. Drawing on the larger area of advertising aesthetics, we conduct semi-structured interviews with content creators to fill this gap. The interview findings revealed the transitional nature of advertising design in social media that incorporates design elements, principles, and functions known in print (in line with the gestalt theory of design and the fluency principle of persuasion), as well as a new conversational rhetoric brought by interactive social media technologies. The social nature and authenticity of advertising design, interactive design affordances, importance of engaging visuals, the fast speed of content creation, and user control are the key study themes that define this rhetoric. The findings inform social media content creators of contemporary design practices and design thinking, and suggest a future research agenda to help conceptualize design aesthetics in social media.