Telling stories in a digital environment — for desktop/laptop computers, tablets, and smartphones — requires storytellers to gather information differently and to offer users access to how and where those stories are consumed. In Spring 2018, Northwestern students in the Medill School of Journalism turned their storytelling lens on the Block Museum of Art exhibition Hank Willis Thomas: Unbranded. For the course Journalism 320: Digital Storytelling with Professor Jill Braverman Blackman, three undergraduate students, Savannah Christensen, Nicole Fallert, and Hannah Lindley created a digital companion website exploring the content and themes at play in the exhibition. Using interactive tools from timelines to podcasts, to animation, infographics, and quizzes, the rich digital story uses the exhibition as a jumping off point to address contemporary issues of advertising, representation, and race.
VIEW THE SITE
Some highlights of this Interactive Project include:
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Biography Timeline: Hank Willis Thomas – The Man Behind the Art
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Video Tour: Block Museum Student Docent Emily Hollingworth
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Podcast: Conversation between Nicole Fowler, Hannah Lindley and Docent Emily Hollingworth
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Video Animation: Ads As Art
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Timeline: Works in the Exhibition Hank Willis Thomas: Unbranded
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Infographic: Activism to Close the Gap
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Unbranded Quiz: Can You Recontextualize these ads
