*the opening sentence or paragraph of a news article, summarizing the most important aspects of the story.
*In journalism, the nut graf is a paragraph that explains the context of the story.
what is the purpose of doing this research?
what questions need to be asked?
different processes have the ability to innovate one another
communication is a unifying factor in both writing and design
the disruption of technology is making us turn to new methods and processes
As design relies on iteration we often fail to do this in writing but here I will take on the task to try to iterate in writing
As both a designer and journalist, I always assumed my processes for both would be pretty similar, but when exploring that further I was proven wrong. For an artist, their process is what makes them unique and shows behind their work but to grow as an artist one needs to question their processes.
In an ever changing world of both design and journalism it’s apt for one to examine the processes of their work to find better, more productive or creative methods. From an outsider's perspective all creative processes may seem to be the same, but in my own finding that could not be farther from the truth. Writing and design have their own unique processes but by observing both processes they can have an impact to innovate one another.
To truly examine my own process, I needed to do some research.
I decided the only unbiased way to truly look at my processes
was to record myself both writing and designing. Besides me
constantly getting distracted, there was really no pattern to
my designing and writing processes. For both I started with
research but then after that is where similarities end. For my
writing process I almost immediately start diving into writing
and write until I feel done and someone can edit but my design
process was different; it was constantly changing and shifting
direction.
Haerin Shit at Vanderbilt University did research on the
impact of the design and writing process on eachother and
noticed that “The design process isn’t linear, it’s
iterative,” and discusses how once we realize that in both our
design and writing processes we become more okay with failure
and false starts. When I design I almost never design
something from the start to finish but do one part then
another then go back and then do something completely
different but when I write it is always a linear process. When
Shin had her students write in a nonlinear way she said it
“helps her students find meaning and arguments through
divergent thinking.”
Using design processes as a way to write is becoming increasingly necessary in journalism as technology is changing the scope of the field. Both writing and design have something fundamental in common communication, but with technology taking over journalism it’s imperative that we take the humanistic approach that design processes have and apply them to journalism.
As design relies on iteration we often fail to do this in writing but here I will take on the task to try to iterate in writing
Whether it’s the art of writing or design, people are focused on the final outcome. What does it look like? What does it say? But, how did the artist get to the final product? The process an artist goes through to achieve the final product is equally, if not more, important than the final product itself. It is what creates intention and meaning behind the work but not all artistic processes are the same. I wanted to examine my personal processes for both writing and design to see how they impact me as an artist as well as seeing how they can impact each other.
With technology taking over both design and writing there are innovations to be made and the first thing we can look at to innovate is the process to the final product. Graphic design has been transformed into a tech based medium so why can’t we take the processes graphic design uses and apply it to writing to make it a tech based medium.
When first diving into my research about this topic I wanted
to see a birds eye view of my own processes. So, I screen
recorded myself both designing and writing and watched them
back. Before this project I believed that one person's
processes were the same throughout their mediums but I
couldn’t be more wrong and was stunned to see that my
processes for writing and design were quite different.
The main difference between the two was the linearity of
writing versus the iterative process of design. The iterative
process allows the artist to try different things and realize
not everything is going to be concluded from the first draft
and this is something that we do in the design process without
questioning it but struggle to do in the writing process. If
implemented in the writing process it allows the writer to
explore more depth and as Haerin Shin from Vanderbilt
University says, “be more okay with false starts and failure
and revision.”
But, graphic design and writing share one large commonality; communication. With technology becoming a permanent facet of our daily lives artists need to adjust how they communicate with their audiences. According to the Harvard Business review the design process relies on user empathy and “design thinking is an essential tool of simplifying and humanizing.” This sense of designing for humans is needed for communication through technology which can sometimes be lost in writing. Many don’t think of their audience when they write but rather what they are trying to communicate instead of who they are communicating to. With the help of the design process, the writing process can grow and improve to meet the need of technology while also impacting the design process itself.