This post is by Reed Reibstein, García Media art director and Mario's assistant at Columbia Journalism School.
This semester, Mario and I taught "Multi-Platform Design & Storytelling" at Columbia Journalism School to fourteen enthusiastic master's students. After introducing them to the "media quartet" and watching them learn the in's and out's of designing for print, web, tablet and smartphone, they undertook a final project in collaboration with Michael Shapiro and James Robinson's class, "Long-Form Digital." Working with counterparts in that class, our students developed multimedia storytelling experience—making use of typography, color, photos, videos, audio and more—for fifteen stories about a weekend of music in New York City. Liner Notes, the title of this final project, is now live for all to read and enjoy.
Here is Mario's take on the final project:
"I am very proud of what both classes have done. The stories are incredibly interesting and well-crafted, and the design and multimedia approaches enhance it all. I believe that people in the industry will be looking at what has been done and learn lessons from it.
"While it is the big newspapers that are approaching multimedia storytelling, medium-size and smaller dailies worldwide are interested in these types of stories. Our class project signals how it can be done."
Screenshots from Liner Notes
From the introduction
To give a comprehensive or complete account of all events music-related in a New York City weekend is, no one would deny, an impossible task. The need for breadth competes with the desire for depth, and the resulting product could only touch upon the surface of what may otherwise be a deep well full of fascinating tales yet to be uncovered. The following 15 stories that compose Liner Notes represent neither a narrative history, nor a cultural survey, nor a full-dress analysis of the importance of music to New York. But they are offered as incisions, made at selected points and times, into the hide of the intriguing animal.
Our class syllabus
The syllabus for "Multi-Platform Design & Storytelling" is available here.
Part II of this series will appear on Wednesday to highlight our students' other work this semester. Tomorrow, the blog will cover our collaboration with Postmedia Network on the Ottawa Citizen's multi-platform relaunch.
