Approach

This week I showed my progress on my data visualization in class and finally got my website up and running. With Maria’s comments on the disparities between data (such as students who say they do not use writing but rate their skill level as high) and my desire to tell a story with the data being shown, I still have more to play around with. Although charts and graphs may be aided with text, I need to figure out how to weave the data together visually as well to draw out the important aspects of my study. In the meantime, I am playing around with the website capabilities and creating a storyline for the data viz.

Choices Made

First off, I got my website up and running and completed a lot of initial formatting and navigation for that:

wordpress iteration1

In addition to some of the graphics developed last week, I examined different plugins on my WordPress-powered site once it was up and running. Because I needed something a little sophisticated for organizing the image data I compiled, I looked at free portfolio gallery filters and weighed the pros and cons of each.

Some did not allow many categories….

While others just seemed unintuitive or underdeveloped for set up…..

I ultimately decided to pay for  premium plugin (only $25) to get all the features I wanted and then added in the categories and images.

worpress mfa thesis portfolio

The categories are still very much a work in progress but I hope for them to be more or less fleshed out by the end of the semester and can update the site as needed. With my Second Year Review yesterday, I presented a PowerPoint yesterday that I hope to use to streamline these categories and explain a bit more in my work for this course: Second Year Review Presentation.

As I’m working through how to fully present this material and inform the nature of the graphics, I also wrote this “script/outline” to guide my decision making:

With the intent of this website to showcase a snapshot of my research and its major findings, the following will need to be communicated in both words and visuals:

The research question and background

• use text to introduce main ideas, but also possibly some referenced images graphics
• structural frameworks (displays/introduction of visual literacies for entire page)

The participants and site

• images of the site
• incorporation of questionnaires data

The methodology

• infographic? – possibly one that can tie all of this together
• perhaps introduce artifact, interview, and observation data here

The findings

• sort out artifact interview, and observation data
• continuation of infographic approach?

The conclusions

• most likely written summary

Current Questions/Needs Raised 

While the capabilities for displaying information are vast and powerful, playing around with them has made me realize I need to take a step back and map out the overarching storyline and argument for this consolidated version of my thesis.

Likely Next Steps

• Website layout and navigation – home page on Ethnography of Writing in Student Design Processes to navigate to: participants and study site, categories of writing, and artifacts/evidence
• Artifacts
  • organize, format, and touch up the last of the photos for importing (some are a bit sloppy or hard to read, scans could be cleaned up)
  • use a portfolio filter/organizer
• iterate on how to display student demographic data
• iterate on categorization ideas (I like embedded bubbles like in AppInventory and the astrology-like wheel in InfoViz SciFi)
• fold in text

Approach

This week I knew that I wanted to create some helpful visualizations of my research, possibly ones that extended beyond simple infographics and imagery but could be interactive as well. With this I started down a path of exploring data visualization tools online, figuring out how I would host these visualizations online, and mapping out what I wanted the data to look like.

Choices Made

Following my foray into graphing and data viz tools last week, I explored some more using some sources Maria sent me (including http://www.stefanieposavec.com and https://textvis.lnu.se). Going through ways in which others developed data viz, I crafted a sort of annotated bibliography of visualization methods that would be useful or that I admired for some reason.

Dear Data

I love the aesthetic, and would be interesting to do something hand-drawn/influenced. This would be good for counting frequencies of occurrences.

http://www.stefanieposavec.com/dear-data

Drawing the Dictionary

Also very aesthetically pleasing. This is the overall “look” I would be going for with the collection of artifact images (Student sketchbooks), but they would not need to be redrawn necessarily – maybe color coded/with the ability to be reorganized by function, author, etc? (don’t know how useful this could be)

http://www.stefanieposavec.com/drawing-the-dictionary-1

Organic Visualization of Document Evolution

These visualizations are interesting in that they are tracking/showing the changes made in a final text. This is not exactly what I am looking at, but the idea of breaking something down simply/the process element is intriguing – parts of it could be applied

InfoViz SciFi

item view – raw data

“The Item View shows a list of science-fictional items, including their title, author, publication or reprint year, literary form, and a stylized version of the symbol that Gibson assigned to the item (see Fig.1, 5, and 6, right). A direct link leads to the item’s abstract” keyword cloud and hierarchical view – established motif and correlation, more prevalent ones displayed larger symbol view – ? interesting but organized in a confusing way

AppInventory

Wow the mechanics behind this was confusing but the visuals were nice and related to me. Bar chart and bubbles could communicate larger groups and then break down further. Ability to zoom in and explore specifics further

iGraph

the geometry in this is bonkers but the idea of arranging images to be viewed all at once and possibly arranging through nodes is helpful

With these visualizations in mind I turned to some online tools like RAWgraphics and, surprisingly, Excel to test out my own data. The following is what I started to come up with to introduce student self-evaluation of skills and other demographics

Still, I would maybe like for these charts to be interactive to see what other patterns emerge based on major, year in the program, and other correlations. I especially want to to this with my big portfolio spread of artifact images to allow users to manipulate organization and categorization.

I figured for this I would need to put on a programming hat and get into the ultimate host of this data: a website.

There were some issues around this: I already had a website I wanted to use but in order to use some of the plugins I wanted/needed for interactive data visualization, I needed either a Business WordPress.com site, or I needed to convert it to a WordPress.org site. This involved a lot more Googling and steps than I would like to describe here and took up most of my time this week, but ultimately I moved my website host, exported the content, and am waiting for processing. In the meantime, I have determined the next steps outlined below.

Likely Next Steps

• organize and touch up photos for importing (some are a bit sloppy or hard to read, scans could be cleaned up)
• website layout and navigation – home page on Ethnography of Writing in Student Design Processes to navigate to: participants and study site, categories of writing, and artifacts/evidence
• iterate on how to display student demographic data
• use a portfolio filter/organizer for artifacts, such as
  • https://awplife.com/wordpress-plugins/portfolio-filter-gallery-wordpress-plugin/
  • https://wordpress.org/plugins/advance-portfolio-grid/#description
• iterate on categorization ideas (I like embedded bubbles like in AppInventory and the astrology-like wheel in InfoViz SciFi)

Approach

With some minimal participation from grad students and the realization that I had A LOT of data to work with from my core thesis project consisting of students from 3 undergraduate studios, I decided to shift my focus to visually represent this data. These graphics would not only serve to complement my written thesis as the focus on my work on this class, but also to help me make more sense of it and interpret new codes as well.

It was very fitting that I opened up to a new page in a half-used sketchbook from last semester to find the question “What does the data look like?”, becoming the start of how I thought about this new approach.

Choices Made

These visuals will be made with the intent to be displayed on a webpage, although they certainly may be used as figures in my written thesis as well. Before making the switch to using contributed data from my thesis research, I played around in Adobe XD to get an idea of how these interactions might look.

With the shift to my thesis data, this might look a little different, however. I mapped out a few ideas, including something like: 1) a single scroll piece which would allow readers to take in the story continuously and linearly or 2) a multi-click scenario which might allow for more side content and also give readers the ability to view the data out of order

or  3) something more animated and multi-layered, like the State of the Union or Anymails or The Dumpster

But before we get too ahead of ourselves, I’ll focus on the graphics. I circled back to some ideas about data visualization from Matt Lewis’s Autumn 2018 studio I participated in, including:

• https://www.asc.ohio-state.edu/lewis.239/Tek/Data_Visualization/
• https://www.braumoeller.info/dataviz/
• http://well-formed-data.net/archives/1027/worlds-not-stories*
• https://www.fastcompany.com/3045291/what-killed-the-infographic`

These links introduced me to some potential tools, but also to some key ideas about data visualization. The post “Worlds Not Stories,”* communicates the point that this venture into data visualization is not about making my thesis more exciting, or less boring, but to provide a new lens for readers to look through. Moreover, the author supports the idea that data visualization does not aim to communicate absolute truths, but opportunities for self knowledge. This is an idea that complements my ethnographic approach, which is founded on the idea that what I am portraying is a small, detailed piece of  a story. Readers and viewers should be open to taking from it what they want.

Additionally, the article “What Killed the Infographic”` gave me some pause. I was originally thinking of these visuals as some sort of infographic, but now I’m wondering if I can push it a bit further to incorporate some dynamic element (more on this later).

With this, I investigated some tools from these site and after talking with Maria during class, including:

• Raw Graphs – https://app.rawgraphs.io
• Tableau (IBM)
• Nvivo (qualitative analysis software)
• MAXDQA (qualitative analysis software)
• Lyra
• and good old fashioned Excel

Using data from a simple survey to begin with the participant info piece, I was ready out some of these tools…only to find that the programs didn’t really like the way I organized my data.

Since I was working with three different sets and wanted to look at them cohesively and also was looking at different variables (yes/no tallies and also ratings from 1-5) I needed to go in and re-enter the data. I did this first with the yes/no tallies on the various concept development tools students used to come up with the following (first in Word, then in Raw Graphs):

Now that I had an idea of how my data needed to be formatted and what these tools could do, I needed to take a step back and work on what I wanted them to do. With this I started a list of different visualizations I wanted to show, including:

• student information:
  • demographics (year in program, majors)
  • what concept methods they used (used for the graphic above)
  • self rating of skills
  • correlation between all of these?
• key words from:
  • interviews
  • my field notes
  • words used by students on post its, sketchbook notes, etc
• graphics:
  • framework of analysis and study
  • displays showing relationships and hierarchies of research findings
• artifact images:
  • for this I have a loose idea of filling the entire screen with images of the artifacts. users can interact by hovering mouse over each to get color-coded info about what it is categorized as, or self-filter to get images only of a certain category
• timeline plot of different writing categories

This maybe seemed like a lot so I prioritized what was most important in BOLD)

Current Questions/Needs Raised 

There’s a bit of a learning curve for some of these programs such as Tableau and Lyra. For now I think I’ll stick with simple outputs that allow me to code data in multiple ways (like NVivo) and maybe figure out how to manually correlate or overlap data.

Likely Next Steps

To hold myself accountable I created a more detailed schedule for the next two weeks:

April 4 – 6: re-enter data to work with programs, work through some tutorials for coding programs (NVivo, most likely)

April 6 – 9: make visualizations for student info and figure out how to maybe add correlations

April 9 – 14: code observation notes and produce key words, work on how this will be mocked up in webpage, develop graphics

Approach

This week I formally outlined my ideas for Phase 2.  Because my overarching goals were really focused on providing a snapshot of what the design school and design process experience was like for grad students (with an emphasis on their writing), I thought that I could still portray this ~virtually~ by exhibiting my colleagues’ work and showcasing their voices. I plan to continue building on my colleagues’ works I have gathered and build on this further through discussions to be recorded/transcribed in tandem with existing and new images/video of visual work. 

I aim to view these  conditions of working digitally positively as an opportunity to not only reflect the current conditions of meeting via the internet and video conferencing  we must comply with, but also the adaptable nature of design and continued camaraderie between myself and my colleagues. The tools and outcomes will depend somewhat on their level of involvement, so I hope to keep my requests to a low amount of work for willing participants. 

Deliverables:

Digital exhibition space (website) showcasing:

• The process work of design students with a focus on writing
• Verbal (audio and transcribed) testimonies by fellow students of the design student experience, the design process, and their experiences with writing
• Graphic representations of the data I have gathered from student response forms, observations, and organized data currently housed unceremoniously in folders

Metrics by which you will use to measure success:

• Completion of a viable website prototype (and if possible, a working website!)
• Incorporation of multiple student voices – aiming for 5 grad students (I currently have 10+ undergraduates I have worked with, however)
• Visual representation of thesis paper on writing in the design process – visual documentation and accessibility of the 6 typologies I have identified
• Incorporation of multimodal media – images, words, audio, and video/dynamic pieces
• Familiarization with new technology – building on rudimentary XD skills, video, possible HTML/coding, and using videoconferencing/long distance interviewing

Choices Made

With these goals in mind I outlined the following schedule:

         W1     March 23-27 (THIS WEEK)

• • Gauge interest and opportunities for collaboration with colleagues as “collaborative partners” 
  • Develop interview questions/tasks for collaborative partners

        W2     March 30 –  April 3

• • Work with collaborative partners to gather materials
  • Develop representations of gathered content

        W3     April 6 -10

• • Work with collaborative partners to gather materials
  • Outline (storyboard) multi-modal pieces – images, words, audio, video 

         W4     April 13 – 17

• • Develop framework and layout of digital exhibition (website)
  • Develop multi-modal pieces – images, words, audio, video in Adobe XD

          W5      April 20 – 24

• • Develop multi-modal pieces – images, words, audio, video in Adobe XD
  • Coordinate Adobe XD to website transfer 

          W5.5     Mon. April 27 at 2:00-3:45pm (class final)

With this in mind, this week I am reaching out to my colleagues to join my project as collaborative participants. I am still working on what exactly to ask of them. In fitting the project goals, it would need to consist of the following:

1. Easy and simple – done in about 15 minutes max
2. Incorporating written, visual, and audio/video
3. Content-wise, it should aim to get at/represent what the design process is like, specifically concerning writing

After talking with Maria in class on Tuesday, she sent me the following links from Mitchell Rose who collaborated with dancers around the world:

I quite liked the outcome of the project and its intention/process of setting up which Rose references in the first video of “getting people to do complicated things remotely.” Rose’s opening up of the choreography and world of dance for all to join in is largely a movement of the “democratization of dance,” much of what I hope to achieve in gathering data from fellow designers.

However, I felt that Rose’s web page of what he asked potential contributors to do was a little too long for what I wanted to ask from students. I’m thinking my request as a simple 1-2-3:

1. Short questionnaire:
   1. Do you typically take notes? In what format?
   2. How do you document your design process?
   3. What is the ratio of text to images in your sketchbook (if applicable)?
   4. Would you consider yourself a strong writer? Why?
   5. What would it take for you to be a better writer?
   6. What would it take for you to be a better designer?
2. In a few words (either written or audio recorded) please explain to me your process of designing
3. Send me a picture of your workspace, your works in progress, or some other image that captures what you do

Current Questions/Needs Raised (this is pretty much a repeat of last week as I have firmed up my ideas)

• Contributed content! Some ideas I have are:
  • getting some written or verbal feedback from grad students to fold into the website mock-up
  • more images
• Iterations of website navigation options
• Images of the space? I really want to incorporate the physicality of the design community somehow – whether this means safely going onto campus, gathering existing images, or coming up with another way to document space

Likely Next Steps

• Put together request for/make content
• Play around in XD some more

Approach

With the advent of the coronavirus resulting in the extension of Spring Break, all classes moving online, and the cancellation of the Spring show, I’m a little unsure about how to proceed with my projects. I’m considering some possible alternatives given the fact that I no longer have an event space and I think it will be very hard to try and get people to meet for interviews. While this is all not the best of news, I am thankful for my own health, the ability to do digital work, and put my designer brain to work at coming up with solutions.

Choices Made

Phase 1

While the past week has been a whirlwind, I had made steps towards finalizing the content I had planned for the Spring show but halted in putting the final details together as these ere largely dependent on the location (frames and printed elements set up – adhering to wall). With this I am considering the following possibilities:

1. expanding digital book
2. still putting together exhibition materials for possible event later in the year (?)
3. look into digital showcase  – something a bit unusual, like these? (I’ll admit I don’t have a ton of experience in web and UX design, so this would likely turn over into Phase 2 of the project)
   1. MOMA
   2. http://delinear.info/612505a83f
   3. https://harmvandendorpel.com/proof-of-work
   4. https://www.invertgallery.com

Phase 2

As for the video, my initial two thoughts for adaptation were:

1. Still ask subjects to be interviewed (in the interest of keeping everyone healthy and in accordance with university measures, this would have to be off campus)
2. Ask students to be interviewed remotely (I do not think this is the aesthetic I am going for)

With this, some alternative I have thought of are:

1. ask students to contribute recordings of their answers to questions/responses about the design process, or record audio conversation
2. collect written responses

With these additional voices, I could then:

1. Do some kind of digital showcase (see Phase 1, idea 3).
2.  Format as a podcast (verbal responses/conversation)

Current Questions/Needs Raised

Wow, there are quite a few big ideas to work through with all that is going on:

• what should I do as far as completing Phase 1? I have submitted all materials for the digital showcase of the grad exhibition
• what equipment should (can?) I return?
• what will I need to know/learn to possibly build a website?
• should the content be altered/added to to better reflect the comprehensive work of my thesis (undergrads and grads)?

Likely Next Steps

• Consult with Maria, advisors, and classmates to see how they are adapting
• take next week or so to explore options
• set out to do something that will provide visual counterpart to thesis (in parallel with this project, I will be spending a lot of my time in quarantine writing said thesis)

Approach

Following feedback provided by Maria and other observers during class Tuesday, I noted changes that I would make for the final.

These included:

• adjust font in digital book (also in concept statement for physical exhibit piece)
• allow the digital book to be accessed at the exhibit with a QR code
• change frames for caption piece (wood frame) and concept (bright pencil frame)
• play around around and finalize frame arrangement (no mat – frame as boundary, not vessel = sketchy examples; frame as vessel, held within frame = digital prints?)
• try to darken lighter scans
• make placards noting author and medium
• work on overall arrangement and cohesion
• reprint on thinker paper/notebook paper

NOTE: With my involvement at the IDEC Conference this past Wednesday-Saturday, I have been working to get as much of this list completed as possible but some progress may not yet be available for uploading to this post. I will update any incomplete areas in RED by Tuesday of this week.

Choices Made

Digital Book

I made some more minor changes to the font and its alignment to get rid of any odd spacing.

I also added more to the introduction to provide more context for my interest in this subject area and inform the book’s content and narrative.

Here is the final digital book!

Exhibition Materials

Since I left for the IDEC conference the day after receiving feedback, it took me awhile to get to this portion of the project and sort out the changes I planned on making. With this, I executed changes first by taking the sketched works out of the frames, removing all glass and matting.

With some of these, the configuration would not work with the way the frames were constructed. I also didn’t like the wood and brightly colored pencil frames, so I bought some new ones as well.

Some other updates:

• I also worked on reprinting the scanned works on nicer/thicker paper to read better
• Adjusting scanned contrast levels
• Adjusting cropped/sizing of scans a bit to fit into frames nicely
• Change font on concept statement piece (and adjust to new frame)

As for the iPad component, I have captured a video screen grab of Abby’s work to showcase. I am now just playing around with the idea of adding other examples to add to the loop that will be playing for the exhibit.

abby 2

And finally, I am working to make the placards defining each “art” piece and also the QR code to link to the Digital Book on issuu.

Video

While completing the digital book an exhibition materials, I aim to film some practice/actual interview over Spring Break and the following weeks and practice layering b-roll over them (I may try this with the practice sessions I did with Kenny if my subjects aren’t available. In the meantime I have thought about how I want to access these questions by asking participants to talk about some of their work (in sketchbooks and from the scanned materials they provided me with.

Current Questions/Needs Raised

With final edits to the digital book and exhibition materials underway, I will be troubleshooting as I go, especially with regard to installation and layout (since I still do not know where my project will be placed).

As I move forward with the video portion of the Phase 2 Project, I will similarly be learning as I go since I have little (read: zero) experience with this type of material outside of taking pictures and video on my phone.

Likely Next Steps

Book:

• Final edits to new Background section

Exhibition: 

• Make additional and final alterations to:
  • frame choices
  • placement of materials
  • wall layout
• Prep and coordinate needs for iPad

Video:

• Practicing camera techniques and set up over next week and break
• Develop interview questions and protocol
• Film subjects! (schedule interviews before spring break, take place week or two after)
• Start filming b-roll
• Put together shot list

Approach

Since the next few weeks are consumed with attending conferences and Spring Break, I am working to achieve final drafts of my Phase 1 Projects: the Digital Book and my physical Exhibition Materials. For the Digital Book, this included iterations of layout ideas in InDesign and compiling submitted work. For the Exhibition Materials, I decided on what materials I would be using and worked towards representing them in their original form in the frames.

I also got started a bit on my Phase 2 Project – the Video. I had a crash course in video and audio set up and began playing around with these tools.

Choices Made

Digital Book

As I was working on the layout of the digital books, I found that organizing by submission author was getting unwieldy, especially considering the fact that I was asking for materials from 18 people. I decided then to organize by category/typology of writing and include a good mix of representative students. This, however, called for a reconsideration of my determined categories. While I had categorized/coded these types of ways writing was being used for my exhibition proposal, I had already been considering new and different terminology while working on a conference presentation the past few weeks.

My original categories for the exhibition proposal were:

• writing as reflection
• writing as presentation 
•  writing as diagramming 
• writing as documentation
• writing as collage 
•  writing as organization 
• writing as notation

And my revised categories for my presentation were:

• writing as cognition
• writing as interpretation
• writing as captioning
• writing as organization
• writing as presentation 
• writing as reflection

I felt that the first pass was more focused on what the writing looked like rather than what it’s intent was (which I considered to be more important). In the second case (categories for the conference) I felt this was remedied a bit but that the categories didn’t apply so much to grad students who worked less in designing graphics, products, and spaces, and more with theories and systems. With this, I set out on another recategorizing mission and came up with the below typologies.

Grad categories:

• writing to understand
• writing to plan
• writing as caption
• writing as organize
• writing as reflect
• writing to present

With this I gathered a range of examples from the submissions received, chose a diverse range representing multiple authors, and organized them in InDesign. I ended up showing four examples of each typology, introducing them with a short paragraph at the start of each “chapter,” prefaced with acknowledgements, an introduction, and table of contents.

After the structure of the book was in place, I worked on the overall aesthetics. I went through several iterations but ultimately settled on something rather bold and minimalist to emphasize the text on display.

After several tweaks and refinements I created the final draft for review:

Exhibition Materials

From working on the Digital Book, I was able to organize and choose what materials to showcase in the physical form of the Exhibition Materials.

This required some additional restructuring of what frames to use, however, since the categories changed just a bit as well (hurriedly worked out on the back of my to do list)

.

With this I planned out the specifics of each frame to determine paper size/type needs, print or transfer specifications, exact measurements, and frame orientation:

At the time of this post I have also worked towards transferring the handwritten elements to torn notebook sheets if applicable.  I’ll be finishing this up in addition to the digital elements housed in the iPad through Sunday and Monday.

Video

Over this past week I have also become acquainted with the video equipment and tactics for filming. I met with Jess to get a crash course in using the Canon camera, tripod, receiver/transmitter and lavaliere mic, then Kenny allowed me to test recording and considerations for what I would do in the real interviews. Some things I learned to remember from conversations with Maria and Kenny’s include:

• don’t have subjects sit in a moving chair!
• consider positioning – middle, or off to one side
• consider where the subject will be looking – at you or at camera
• consider background – what should be behind them?
• lighting – from back, side, or behind
• prep subjects to answer questions by reporting the question first
• ease into main questions with subjects – keep it casual

Current Questions/Needs Raised

With the elements all mostly prepped I’m wondering how I want to present them. The Digital Book is neatly linked on the website issuu but I’m still figuring out how I want to mock up the exhibition materials without drilling holes into walls quite yet.

Thinking ahead, I’ll also need to think about where I want the video to live and where all three of these materials should fit in with my written thesis.

These concerns are maybe a bit farther down the line and for the next week or so I’m thinking specifically about the following:

Likely Next Steps

Book:

• Per feedback on Tuesday: tweaks to layout, subject choices, etc.

Exhibition: 

• Per feedback on Tuesday: tweaks to exhibition materials: frame layout, subject choices, etc.

Video:

• Practicing camera techniques and set up over next week and break
• Develop interview questions and protocol
• Film subjects! (schedule interviews before spring break, take place week or two after)

Approach

This week I focused on making progress on the three components of my Phase 1 and Phase 2 projects: a digital book, the physical exhibition materials, and a video on the design process.

Digital Book

While I am still working on compiling all 18 students’ work, I have started to organize and format materials in the digital book format using Adobe InDesign.

Exhibition Materials

While this component of my work is somewhat dependent on getting a range of materials from fellow MFA grads, I spent this week organizing and cataloguing submitted work, assigning typologies and potential frames, and testing out methods of making the materials look as though they are in their natural form (i.e. torn out of journal or digital).

Video

I began a general storyboard for the video and ascertained needs in the coming weeks.

Choices Made

Digital Book

After reaching out to grads and formatting submitted materials, I catalogued all provided works in an Excel doc.

I’ve begun dumping these works into an InDesign doc and formatting the book to provide each student with about 4 pages plus a short bio about their research focus. I’ve still got a lot of choices to make as far as overall aesthetics of the document, not to mention the need for my classmates’ images!

Exhibition Materials

I approached this project portion by taking inventory of the frames I planned to showcase materials in (repeated images demonstrate that there is a duplicate of these frame sizes and two examples will be given):

I also printed out some of the images I thought I would be most likely to use from those submitted thus far to see how they might be positioned in the frame:

After laying some of these print outs into the frames, however, I realized that some customization may be needed to position them a bit better in the more atypical (not 8.5 x 11) frame sizes.

Next, in order to get an “original” journal-page look, I googled some transfer techniques and found a possible solution using contact paper:

Journaling: Transferring Images with Con-Tact Paper

I tested this out myself and it worked pretty well!

I used the back of spoon handle to smooth out the edges and noticed that some scratch marks appeared on the clear surface of the contact paper. The contact paper is then mod-poged onto the paper surface which may then cause it to not look to “natural.” Some additional iteration may need to be considered.

I also checked out an iPad from the ACCAD closet to load digital materials onto to cycle through during the exhibit. I will need to figure out how to set this up/lock controls.

Video

I attempted to storyboard my ideas for this video. I want it to be 100% narrated by the students I end up interviewing with views of their work but also of the Department of Design/Hayes Hall scenes as well to demonstrate studio culture.

However, I struggled to sketch out concrete scenes and decided to do a “reverse” storyboard of a video by IDEO, one of the videos referenced in my project proposal.

This helped immensely with understanding what the video could look like and how to move forward. Additionally, after talking with Maria during class, I found that the b-roll content could largely be decided after I do interviews to have the narrative come from students themselves. with this, I planned to identify and schedule student interviews in the coming weeks around Spring Break.

Current Questions/Needs Raised

• Possibly need to orient most frames landscape instead of portrait
• Enlist help and prep for interviews!

Likely Next Steps

Book:

• Continue collecting materials from grad students!!!
• Finalize digital book aesthetic and layout to insert works into

Collage

• Finalize materials for each frame
• Work on transferring/framing each material

Video

• Practicing camera techniques and set up
• Develop interview questions and protocol (interviews scheduled before spring break, take place week or two after)

Approach

In the past week I made a few changes to my project proposal for the physical “collage” of writing process work to better portray key ideas of my research in a more organized way at the graduate exhibition:

Exhibition Proposal Guidelines  

• I plan to utilize the work of other design grads to assemble their sketches, print outs, and digital text as documentation of their design process. These materials will be organized thematically and showcased in traditional frames. Titles are to be determined, but the following frame sizes and categories will be used:

a. 8” x 10” – writing as reflection (feedback, evaluation)

b. 6” x 8” – writing as presentation (concept statement)

c. (2) 8” x 10” – writing as diagramming (flow chart/mind map)

d. 9” x 11” – writing as documentation (process post – digital*)

e. 5” x 5” – writing as collage (post it note)

f. (2) 9 x 12” – writing as organization (notes/lists)

g. (2) 12” x 15” – writing as notation (drawings with writing) 

Digital works will be displayed via an iPad with the frame around it.

Additionally, a 6” x 8” paper placard will be mounted (using tape or adhesive) with a key of the displayed work.

• See the below sketch for the layout and spatial needs of the displayed work. I have provided two layout options to potentially accommodate spatial needs.

Option A:

Option B: 

To accommodate spatial requirements, the frames can also be arranged within the space as pairs or groupings to be distributed in various locations within the exhibition space next to their original authors (other MFA grads). Frames with the same lettering (i.e. “F” or “G”) must be kept together. Paper placard to note description and author of work will also need to be installed at each location – 2” x 3.5” 

• Frames are intended to be hung with nails. iPads will be mounted independently from frames using a bracket. Lighting should be focused on the work but as to not show glare on digital works. 
• No pedestals or surfaces are required.
• An iPad or small screen can be provided if not available through UAS. No additional technology is needed. iPad will need to be charged nightly.

Choices Made

With this, I have organized and begun categorizing the materials submitted to me by fellow graduate students:

With this I am identifying each example I want to use for the exhibition in addition to others to use in the digital book. My aim is to display works in their “original state,” i.e from sketchbooks, post-its, or digitally. With this, I am also exploring ways and materials to transfer scanned text to a re-created sketchbook page or using an iPad to house works online in their original space. For now, however, I have identified the following works for each category

a. writing as reflection 

b. writing as presentation –  project concept statement (my own)

c. writing as diagramming (2 of these) – Will and Simon

d. writing as documentation  – Abby

e.  writing as collage – Yiting

f.  writing as organization (2 of these) – Noor

g. writing as notation (2 of these) – Noor

These may change as I get more content from other grads to offer more examples.

Current Questions/Needs Raised

I need to explore ways of portraying works in their original form, including how I want the digital examples to be cycled/clicked through, as well as the more physical aspects of fitting an iPad within one of the frames as well as how to have paper examples appear to be in their original form.

Likely Next Steps

Collage/Book:

• Continue collecting materials from grad students for collage/book
• Test ways of portraying collection – “sketchbook ” effects, iPad configuration
• Development of book layout (digital format of collage) 

Video

• Develop storyboard for video 
• Continue practicing camera techniques – audio and videography