Picturing Story
A Visual Gallery of concepts & methods of story in Interaction Design
What’s a story? How do stories work? How do stories communicate, build empathy, connect and inspire? And how can stories help designers create meaningful interactive products?
In this poster gallery, designers in the Interaction Design program at California College of the Arts visualize key concepts and methods of story.
Each poster links to a larger version (opens in the same window.)
About story studio
This summary lists all the concepts in the gallery and gives context about the Story Studio course.
Foundations of Story
Foundations are the building blocks of stories: structure (story arc), character and goal/motivation/conflict (GMC), setting, action, scene, point of view (POV), voice, distance, and ladder of abstraction.
Story Structure
by J.P.
Character & GMC
by Corey Rossi.
Setting
by B.D.
Action
by Ainsley Carter.
Scene
by N.J.
Point of View & Voice
by Tian Jiang.
Distance & Ladder of Abstraction
by Y.X.
Story Telling
Storytelling is about how a story is expressed: telling orders and models for branching narratives.
Telling Orders
by Karen Zhang.
Branching narrative
by Madhumita Elan.
Tools
Tools common in story-building are playtesting and storyboarding.
Playtesting
by Bruce Hsiao.
Storyboarding
by Min Ji Kim.
Story for Interaction Design
Stories of people, product and process…featuring provisional personas, concept stories, origin stories, usage stories and case study creation.
People — Provisional Personas
by R.K.
Product Concept Stories
by Anton Castro.
Product Origin Stories
by E.T.
Product Usage Stories
by Betty Li.
Process stories via case studies
by Xinran Li.
About the Gallery
The work in this visual gallery was created by 2nd-year designers in the Interaction Design program at California College of the Arts as a final project in the course Time Studio 1: Story. In the first part of the course, The cohort explores storytelling through a series of story labs, each lab focusing on core elements of story creation. The last part of the course immerses the designers in using principles of story to understand, communicate, and design interactive products.
Designers featured in the gallery: Ainsley Carter • Anton Castro • B.D. • Bruce Hsiao • Corey Rossi • E.T. • J.P. • Karen Zhang • Min Ji Kim • Mita Elan • N.J. • Rannie Li • R.K. • Tian Jiang • Y.X.
The Spring 2020 cohort was facilitated by Kate Rutter, Adjunct professor @ CCA and Mahesh Kantheti, designer in the MDES Interaction Design program.
Special shoutout to all the faculty who have led and evolved this course over time: David & Mary Sherwin, Christina Wodtke, Amy Bickerton and Jake Rheinfrank.
