&Now 2015: Blast Radius

This presentation focuses on a new approach to narrative and narrative design which deploys graphic elements and design thinking strategies to arrive at ‘hybrid’ image/texts. There is a small, secret history of designed works in fiction, from Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy to Mark Danielwski’s House of Leaves. The visual literacy and communication methods of the design field open up new possibilities in fiction, from structuring narratives in a formally designed way to creating moments of emotional impact with well-timed visual or typographical surprises. The combination of text and image-based narrative has implications for interactive works, graphic novels, games, and designed novels. Zach Dodson and Saku Heinänen are building a new Graphic Design masters curriculum around the techniques and methodologies of hybrid works at Aalto University in Helsinki, Finland. The program is interdisciplinary as well as widely cross-cultural, creating a tinder box for new ideas. Heinänen has also developed a minor course of studies, Pixstories, which combine animation and storytelling. Here they present these emerging fields, the programs built around them, and a peek at the exciting works that are emerging from a hybridization of storytelling.