Humanities and Arts Comic, Part 1: Starting Out

     We have a new assignment, and this time we are once again creating something for a client. The task is to make a four to five-page comic which explains how students at WPI can complete their Humanities and Arts requirement, and our client is Kris Boudreau, the chair of Humanities and Arts at WPI. There are actually two different options for this assignment: to explain either the conventional Depth and Breadth method of completing the requirement, or to describe how the Thematic approach to the requirement works. I am working with Jess Hatt again, and we will be tackling the Thematic approach with our comic.
     For the thematic approach, students select an overarching theme, then choose a capstone project (either an Inquiry Seminar or a Practicum) and a set of five regular classes which all relate to their chosen theme. This not only lets them focus on a specific topic of interest to them, but also provides much more flexibility with what classes they choose, and the variety of disciplines which those classes can fall under. However, we have also discovered, in trying to research this project, that there is almost nothing written online about the specifics of the thematic approach, which is problematic. Fortunately, Professor deWinter was able to provide some information and resources.
     We decided from the outset that the majority of the information conveyed in our comic will be through the text. Images will be reserved to a more supporting role, used to illustrate, provide examples, or make the text feel more relatable or approachable. We aim to create what Scott McCloud, author of the informational comic Understanding Comics (1993), would consider to be a word-specific comic. When discussing something as abstract as a way to choose classes, relying on images 
     In our initial brainstorming session, we also settled on a set of key features we want to include. Of course, there were the obvious ones of explaining how the to fulfill the requirement and why students would be interested in choosing the thematic approach. But we also wanted to make sure the information was presented in an engaging, approachable way, and hit upon the idea of using a range of characters representing different academic disciplines. One of the draws of the thematic approach is that it lets students choose courses from a variety of disciplines, and this seemed like a fitting way to tie into that aspect of it. We also realized that it would be hard to stretch the comic to four or five pages if we only talked about how to complete the requirement, so we plan to include examples of some themes students may be interested in choosing. The last main idea we came up with was to use real photos with the characters superimposed on them for the background of panels, ideally ones from the WPI campus or the Worester Art Museum. This would not only let us add a good deal of visual detail without risking going too far beyond the scope of the assignment in terms of time commitment, but would also help it feel more relevant to WPI students and help to establish a degree of ethos.

References:
McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics. New York: HarperCollins P, 1993. 138-61.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Information Graphic, Part 3: Redesigning our Graphic

Image
Drafting Process      With the feedback we received from Professor deWinter in mind, we set out to remake our graphic so that is specifically focused on encouraging biology majors to get some computer science experience. Almost immediately, we got the idea to use an image of DNA as the central focus of our infographic. DNA was a perfect choice not only because it is fundamentally related to biology, but also because its form is that of two interlinked strands. This linked structure works very well with the message we are trying to convey that computer science is relevant and important to biology. Our more narrowed focus also allows us to suggest very specific classes for biology students to take at WPI if they wish to expand their computer science knowledge. The two we chose are CS 1004, the introductory computer science course for non-majors, and BCB 100X, a bioinformatics and computational biology course. CS 1004 also has the added bonus of being taught using the language Python,
Read more

Humanities and Arts Comic, Part 2: Characters and Rough Draft

Image
     After our brainstorming session, Jess and I each sketched our own ideas for how the characters representing each discipline could look. We also had been considering having one established as the "leader," who would do most of the talking. The rough designs I came up with were as follows:      My "leader" character was based off an idea we had tossed around in brainstorming, where they appeared as just a well-dressed figure with a mask. My interpretation would have the mask be WPI's seal, and the figure to be none other than Gompei himself. Foreign language was intended to be a dictionary with a globe one it, rhetoric was a podium with a face, theater was a comedy and tragedy mask duo, history was a suit of armor, literature was formed from a stack of books with glasses, and the arts were represented by a palette with a paintbrush and a pencil for legs. The sad checklist was intended to represent the Breadth and Depth requirement, as it could ea
Read more

Yeti Expedition Escape Room Font, Part 2: Collaborative Design

Image
      Jessica Hatt and I decided to work together to create a new font combining both of our rough draft ones. Both of us had done a font focused on conveying the idea of cold by using icicle-like motifs on our letters. The main differences between our fonts were that mine had letters with an aspect ratio between 1:2 and 3:4, had one or two slight triangular peaks on the tops of letters, and had serifs, while hers were closer to square, had chisel-shaped points on top of letters, and lacked serifs.      After comparing designs and brainstorming, we settled on a set of design elements for our final font. The letters will all have a roughly 25 to 30 degree slant from vertical towards the right, which helps convey a sense of rushing and urgency. Their lines will have a moderate, consistent thickness. The font will be sans-serif, but it will retain the icicle details in the places our two fonts used them: primarily the upper-left inside of curves, the lower-right outside of curves, and u
Read more