On April 19 at 10.15-12.00, Zachary Thomas Dodson, professor of Practice at the Aalto University, Helsinki, will hold a seminar with the title “Visual Narratives”. It will be held in room: NIC 0502 in Niagara. Here is a an abstract for the seminar:

This seminar focuses on a new approach to narrative and narrative design which deploys graphic elements and design thinking strategies to arrive at ‘hybrid’ image/texts. 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 has built a new Visual Communication Design masters curriculum around the techniques and methodologies of hybrid works at Aalto University in Helsinki, Finland. The program is interdisciplinary as well as cross-cultural, creating a tinder box for new ideas. There is also a new major in Information Design. He will present these emerging fields, the programs built around them, and a peek at the exciting works that are emerging from a hybridization of storytelling.