- Due April 14
- Project ideation
- Write up a project pitch
- Upload a
PDFof your pitch to Canvas
To kick off this last project, we'll do some ideation exercises together in class.
INDIVIDUAL IDEATION
Coming up with ideas together in a group can be really intimidating, so instead we'll start individually. The goal here is to come up with as many ideas as possible but don't strees if you don't think of a ton of things right away. You'll only be asked to share a few things, so it's best to just list every dumb thing that comes to mind, then sort through them later!
Some possible areas to consider:
- Field of study or disciplines that might be interesting to you
- Questions you might want to ask
- Something you want to try to understand through data
- Topics where data might be particularly interesting
- Time periods, historical events, etc
- Media like TV, movies, anime, etc
- Scientific topics or technical processes
- Cataloging all of something (birds of North America, boy bands, etc)
- "What was the impact of X on Y?"
- Everyday things that could be quantified through data
- Specific communities or groups of people
- Or anything else that comes to mind!
What not to worry about yet:
- Exact project ideas (ex: "I'm going to visualize data around X topic to show Y")
- Details of the topics/fields you might explore
- Knowing what data exists!
BRAIN-WRITING
For our next step, we'll share ideas from the individual ideation exercise then add further thoughts to them using a process called brain-writing (which is a variation on this process).
Go to this page and we'll talk about what comes next!
This week, you should decide on a direction for your final and write up a project pitch. Coming up with ideas for projects can be one of the hardest parts of creative work, especially with open-ended assignments! Instead of staring at a blank canvas screen, start with:
- Something you're genuinely excited to learn more about...
- Something you're already passionate about...
- ...or, optionally, something you already know a little bit about but would welcome time to dig into further
With an idea (or the seed of one) in mind, this week you should do some initial contextual research and then write up a project "pitch." This document is meant to help you put together your ideas as well as be a way for us to better understand what you're going to be working on. Write everything as if you were presenting this to a client: nice formatting, proof-read and spell-check!
Your pitch should include:
- Project title: tentative but clearly states your project's goals
- Summary: 1– or 2–sentence summary of your project (like an abstract or elevator pitch)
- Short description: what do you want to know more about and/or a question you'd like to ask through your research, and your planned project format (2–3 paragraphs)
- Data sources: where might you find some data for your project? You don't need actual data yet, but if you find it: great!
- Who: who do you want this project to reach and why is this topic important to you and/or society? (1–2 paragraphs)
You can include any other info you want that helps explain your project, such as:
- Inspiration (visualizations, design projects, etc)
- Mood board
- Sample visualizations of your data (can be super quick in Excel or
chart.jsor even hand-drawn!) - Annotated color schemes or font options
- Etc etc!
Note: everything here is tentative and can change as you look for data, prototype, and refine the project. But try to be as specific here as you can – small changes as you work are easy but bigger changes will risk putting your project behind schedule.
When your pitch is finished, save it as a PDF and upload to Canvas. You'll present your project's summary to the class next week.