Amazing Student Multimedia Project at Ohio University
Do yourself a favor. Check out Soul of Athens.
It’s an innovative online publication produced by students at Ohio University’s School of Visual Communication and E.W. Scripps School of Journalism.
Quick stats:
- 41 projects
- more than 50 photographers, designers, Web developers and writers.
My thoughts
If I could go back in time and have a do-over, I’d like to attend a university where I could participate in projects like this. The pitfall of the traditional university visual arts program is a lack of connection to storytelling. To often you’ll find art for art’s sake and design for design’s sake. ..and ultimately a poverty of meaning. I love these stories and their strong community connection.
See Also:
- Nice post about the project at Innovative Interactivity
- Soul of Athens on Twitter
- ..and on Vimeo
Only in the past few years have the journalism programs at universities delved into this stuff, and a lot of them are way behind this caliber. In fact, Ohio University’s Visual Communications program is generally regarded as one of, if not the, best visual journalism program in the country.
There will always be a place for storytelling on a university’s website, but I tend to find it low on the totem pole for a lot of students when I worked at a university. They want to know the university’s reputation, their program’s reputation, cost and financial aid. When I last made a site for “future students,” the first thing they looked at were programs of study.
As for this example, I find it too flashy. Too much sliding, fading and moving around. Just the front alone is mystery meat navigation. It’s a great technical feat, but I’ll take some light jQuery or SlideShowPro any day. At the end of the day, I think people just want to see some photos or videos and not strap in for “an experience.”
I’m there with ya on the flash thing. “mystery meat navigation” is a great phrase. Just give me the content. I think too often people ruin great content by over-packaging it and hiding it behind preloaders and fluff.
The sad part, the truly sad part, is that a good percentage of design journals and marketing management people, are ALL ABOUT the fluff. These are the same people who don’t appreciate great content and don’t have the patience for storytelling. To me it’s a simple question of packaging over product.
I should mention that the front isn’t strictly mystery meat: If you hover over a photo, the reserved box fills in with the details. Still, if I have no idea what this is, I’m left wondering the eternal “Why should I care?” question.
again i agree with you on the whole gratuitous flash and mystery navigation thing. But I think we must get down off our high horse and see this site for what it is, an AMAZING collection of student produced digital journalism.
It’s easy to nitpick.