Once upon a time, you flipped open a Sunday paper to read the latest and greatest news. Looking at comic strips and doing crossword puzzles were a way to interact with the newspaper and make for an interesting and stimulating read. Now fast forward to today’s day and age where receiving a notification ping is your email telling you that the Sunday paper is ready to read. But reading words on a computer is not as interesting as holding a paper and ink in your hands (and it’s definitely not good for your eyes either).
It turns out that there’s a whole other side to Adobe InDesign that I never knew about until Interactive Design III with Katherine Bondi last semester. I learned about interactive elements that you can add to your InDesign file that are more than buttons and hyperlinks. You can really put on a whole performance for your reader with features that allow elements to slide, fade and bounce in on timers and/or triggers. So if you want to make your online article a little bit cooler and stand out from the rest, these features are the way to go.
With September around the corner, this blog post doubles as a reminder that September is Ovarian Cancer Awareness month, and I encourage you all to go and check out my interactive article about STAAR’s Step Up America campaign. STAAR is an organization that helps raise money for LGSC (low grade serous carcinoma) and helps fund research since there is currently no government funding for it.
When you first open the article, one of my favorite tools was being able to order the way things appear on the screen so I can intentionally navigate my reader through the page. The feature I am most excited about my reader interacting with are the clickable triggers on page two that reveal statistics and facts about LGSC. You will also find many visual infographics, animations and gifs that will interact and educate you on low grade serous carcinoma.
This project stands as one of my strongest portfolio pieces and something I am so very proud of. It holds so much meaning and it only gets more meaningful as I share it with others and you. As a designer, the ability to use my platform to educate and raise awareness in an effective and creative way gives me, quite literally, a reason to keep designing and proves to be why I love it so much. In my creative process, I found myself taking risks, (especially with that yellow as a background) getting out of my comfort zone, and putting 110% of my efforts into revisiting and revising even after I received my mark for the class project.
Once again, September is Ovarian Cancer Awareness month and STAAR has taken on my article for their own use. This year the Step Up America campaign is getting nationally recognized as they Color the Country Teal. As many campuses around the country take on awareness events during September I am happy to be a part of the movement and advocate. STAAR is sending me a big box of T-shirts this month that I have the privilege to share with you, so keep an eye out around campus. I highly recommend that if you are unable to donate, come find me for a t-shirt and help spread awareness!
