Text Story

In many ways, Text Story is the sum of three semesters worth of work. What made this exercise of particular value was that we were incorporating many of the lessons learned throughout the year- the visualization of data, developoing a critical voice and crouching our work in a cultural and historic context. The methodology listed below is of particular importance because it was earned and will hopefully applied to future projects.

Our initial reserach was directed towards finding any and every reference to how to visualize text. In retrospect, what we should have considered first was through which medium our text was being filtered- in this case a book. This decision to move away from the "webby pattern" and more towards how books were layed out was an important first move in the creation of Text Story

With a very limited knowledge in book desiign, another masterstroke in the research process was learning to ask for help. Leah Hoffmitz, a typography teacher at Art Center, was able to give us a crash course in book layout, type choice and readability. In turn, we took these suggestions and made quick drafts for critique. Finally, we stuck to the "type classics"- a successful move in retrospect.

After conducting our initial reserach, we began to make our first attempts at visualizing the fast majority of text messages. First and foremost, we had to decide what lens we wanted to design through- are we typographers, designers. Invaluable in the process was the decision to make quick, rough sketches of a wide range of visualizations. This decision to makeearly and often was key in keeping the momentum throughout the project. We need to explore for the sake of exploring.

And why we were able to work quickly on a wide-range of iterations, the flip book was also proved a particular stumblig block for a variety of reasons- form, flow and shape. In the future, I will be sure to adapt design technology to speed up the iterative process. My decision to use Photoshop (as opposed to InDesign) cost me valuable hours that could have been spent on making. Secondly, book design in general uses a lot of paper. It is only possible to see the flow of a book when holding drafts of a book. Again, the move to making rather than speculating was of paramount importanc.

It was decided very early in the design process that the look and feel would be evocative rather than didactic, reflective rather than authoratative. An excellent reference is that of a photo album. The content itself is not necessarily important. Rather it is the frame of reference that evokes personal and familial memory that gives the imgages (or in this case the text). Hanna, please call Carrie Kunkel.

What makes Text Story so unique in the realm of design research is that true collaboration between designers and participants. Moreover, it is important to understnad the book was designed with point of view directed towards the family. Having worked with this particular family for the past year, we were able to leverage our intimate knowledge and incorporate it into the design.

The collaboration between Julia and I was also unique. An unspoken understanding between each other developed where we were able to working independently on those aspect of the book that we felt most passionate about. This was particularily true during the first iterations of the book where we were able to choose aspects of the data that we both found interesting. What most impressed me about working with Julia is that she had a very strong vision of the look and feel of the book at a very early stage. I enjoyed watching her defend our decisions. For me an invaluable lesson was knowing when to lead and when to support.