Before there was history, there was storytelling. It’s essential to our human identity. The stories we tell are how we know who we are.

– Daniel McDermon, New York Times

PROJECT OVERVIEW

Storytelling is one of the principal ways we organize our experience(s) of the world. Narrative helps us communicate with one another, chart through new experiences, and make order out of the chaos of events, characters, actions, and time periods that make up our lives.

Narratives come in many forms— written, image-based, diagrammatic, static, time-based, or any combination. In the traditional model, narrative includes a beginning, middle, and an end. However, the concept of narrative has evolved with technological innovations to include explorations of simultaneous, layered, circuitous, exploratory, and random narrative as well. While narrative is often bound to a sequential structure, shifts in place or time add depth and complexity to what might seem at first to be a straight “linear” story. Shifts in narrator or point of view from which the story is being told can expand how a narrative functions.

While not in a literal sense, this project is a stepping-stone to the Graphic Design Capstone: a student-driven, and research-driven project that will require you to conceive of, manage, and execute a complex design process – essential skills to enable you to move on to Capstone.

INTRODUCTION

This project will challenge you to explore the potential of storytelling in communication design.

Based on your research, you will develop one story, then experiment and investigate how the unique affordances of different mediums affect its form and message. Each sketch or mockup you make will bring a different aspect of the narrative to the forefront (character, setting, plot, mood, etc.), encouraging you to discover more about how the design choices you make affect how the story is told.
How can we use a variety of media to create an authentic, exciting experience for the story’s audience/s? What does it mean to be a visual storyteller?

While your two mediums will share a visual language, they should not be designed as components of a campaign or brand system. Instead, treat each interpretation as a standalone narrative experience — shaped by medium, audience, and perspective. Even if your visual choices are similar, the structure, pacing, and delivery of meaning should shift intentionally between forms.

As you develop your two narrative interpretations, you’ll also identify and analyze the Structural Meaning-Units (SMUs) within each medium — the smallest functional or expressive components that shape how meaning is structured and performed.

These elements — whether rooted in form, structure, interaction, or experience — all contribute to how your narrative is perceived and understood.

As you design, consider how each SMU functions within each individual medium and how they might shift, contrast, or align across the two mediums together. What happens to the story when these structures change? How does audience interpretation shift?

As you develop your two narrative interpretations, you will identify and analyze the Structural Meaning-Units (SMUs) within each medium — the smallest functional or expressive components that structure meaning. These may include visual, spatial, or time-based elements (linear, non-linear, or circuitous), as well as the medium’s affordances: its level of audience involvement (passive, active, or participatory), and the sensory modalities it engages (visual, auditory, tactile, etc.).

You might consider layout structures, interface actions, pacing strategies, spatial markers, or narrative arcs — whatever formal choices shape the experience. You’ll also examine how SMUs operate across both mediums — and how their contrast or alignment changes the way the audience encounters your story.

This project is process-oriented and experimental in nature, encouraging play with images, typography, color, use of materials, etc. A deep ideation and sketching process is expected, and will help you experiment with multiple ideas before choosing a final concept direction for each narrative solution to tell the story in a compelling and meaningful way.

CONSIDERATIONS

+ What subject, message, individual, group, or place are you interested in exploring?

+ What is the goal of your project?

+ Who is your intended audience?

+ What strategies can you use to gather and document your raw materials (text, images, sound, etc.)?

+ How might you structure these materials to create a compelling visual narrative?

+ How does the medium reshape the meaning of the story?

+ How can your design challenge or shift how the audience perceives the medium itself?

+ What do you want your audience to know, feel, or do after experiencing your work?
(This is your core message.)

Different Storytelling Approaches:
Storytelling: Biographical
Storytelling: Experiential
Storytelling: Fictional
Storytelling: Informational
Storytelling: An Interview
Storytelling: A Location/Place
Storytelling: A Feeling
Storytelling: A Journey

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

+ Investigate fundamental questions of creating visual narrative in communication design,
whether in print, interactive, time-based media, etc.
+ Recognize and begin to understand narrative structures
+ Understand the unique attributes of different mediums
(Optional postscript — closing reflection)
+ Use a rigorous research process to develop content and explore how to shape
elements / data / information into an engaging narrative
+ Further develop independence in decision-making, and ability to self-critique
+ Finesse critical thinking to solve communication problems
+ Apply writing as a tool to strengthen critical thinking
+ Synthesize and translate research into visualized work
+ Hone collaboration and presentation skills

PROJECT PART 1: PROCESS

Phase I: Research

+ Identify several narrative themes (2-3) you would like to further pursue
+ Use multiple research strategies
+ Conduct field work (if necessary)

Phase II: Ideation

+ From your research, narrow down several directions to further explore
+ Consider each direction’s subject/theme, point of view, goal of your communication
+ Analyze and define the unique affordances of the two mediums for your selected narratives

Phase III: Content Development

+ Create/collect raw materials (written, visual, audio, tactile, etc.)
What to Collect?
– Imagery (photographs, drawings, diagrams, charts, maps, textures, colors, etc)
– Text-based content, multiple sources/types (verbal language/cop, audio transcripts, contextual copy or other language i.e. in artifacts such as signs, conversations, letters, menu’s, instructions, etc.)
– Sound/audio – Anything else that you can think of. Be creative!

+ “Build” the narrative

– In order to build your narrative, start by mapping it. Define possible “narrative arc” etc.
– Create a diagram/map of your narrative by analyzing it and visualizing its structure

Phase IV: Concept Development

+ Narrative Shaping

+ Create: Develop a visual vocabulary for the story: typefaces, colors, symbols, imagery, shapes, textures, etc. – Explore layout and approaches to organizing content (grid)

Phase V: Implementation

+ Development & execution: print, interactive/motion, environmental mediums (etc.)

PROJECT PART 2: CROSS-MEDIA APPLICATION

Based on your research, personal interests, target audience, and project goals, develop one story and then reinterpret for two distinctly different mediums.

The two adaptations should be distinct, well-crafted interpretations of the story in which the unique affordances of each media are an integral part of your design solution. (Media choice will be defined by you, and could be motion, interactive, 3D, 2D, experimental or re-interpretations of a particular medium.)

DELIVERABLES

+ Abstract: brief description of your story, research interests, subject, point of view, target audience, use of media in your strategic design approach, and description of your solutions (100-150 words)

+ Narratives: two well-crafted narratives based on the same story that utilize two different media

+ Documentation: your research and design process (sketchbook, etc)

RESOURCES

Narrative Inspirations Post

Narrative Mapping In-Class Exercise

How to Write an Abstract + Examples

Examples of Past Mid-Term Presentations

Lupton, Ellen. Design Is Storytelling
Website for the book:
https://storytelling.design/

Samara, Tim. Making & Breaking The Grid, Second Edition
(PDF in Resource Folder in Shared Google Drive)

Narrative Project Inspirations (Links – TBD)

SCHEDULE

Due Monday, Sept. 22 for Narrative Project:
+ Write and print a 50-word abstract for each story direction explaining goals, audience, peliminary medium ideas and why you selected them (affordances).
+ See Abstract Resources Here
+ Bring a minimum of 10-15 different potential content sources / raw materials and visual research for BOTH of your 2 Story directions as hard copies/printouts for use in class on Monday (total of 30+). *Note: all printing needs to be done before the start of class. Entire class session will be Narrative Mapping in room 502.
+ Bring tools to work with, such as x-acto knife or scissors, markers, ruler, pencils, post-its, index cards, sketching materials, etc.)

Note: See Resources section above.

Consult Class Schedule on our website regularly: https://acmgd.info/cms/class-schedule-2025/