This study examines how visual rhetoric varies across distinct institutional contexts by comparing award-winning print advertisements from a Chinese student competition and an internationally recognized professional festival. Drawing on a mixed-methods design, the analysis combines quantitative content analysis of 1,052 advertisements (2014–2019) with qualitative illustration to investigate variation across three dimensions of visual grammar: image, composition, and style. Results reveal systematic differences in symbolic prevalence and stylistic execution, with student campaigns relying more heavily on metaphor, deformation, and illustrative techniques, while professional entries more frequently employ photographic realism and restrained visual modification. In contrast, foundational compositional structures—such as balance and primary–secondary layout—show relatively limited differentiation across contexts. Effect sizes were largest for stylistic variables and smallest for compositional organization, suggesting that differentiation between the two competitions appears more pronounced at the level of aesthetic execution than structural visual grammar. A supplementary longitudinal comparison of post-pandemic student works provides exploratory observations suggesting continuity in visual rhetorical tendencies within the competition. By foregrounding competitions as sites of aesthetic legitimation, this study suggests that hybrid visual forms may be associated not only with cultural expression but also with institutional environments of training and professional evaluation. The findings contribute to visual communication research by integrating multimodal theory with institutional analysis and clarifying how global visual communication can exhibit both structural convergence and expressive divergence.
Siyu Wang (Fri,) studied this question.