In 2014, I embarked on an immersive historical research project to visualize the History of Motion Graphic Design. Through a unique partnership with Roy Zimmerman, Microsoft Research Connections, I introduced my students to the open source platform of ChronoZoom to create a visual, interactive historical timelines that allows for the aggregation and sharing of historical data.

We used ChronoZoom as our dynamic, open source platform to build and share our evolving History of Motion Graphic Design timeline. Each of the History of Motion Design students chose a research topic for their final research project and ChronoZoom exhibit.

For their final research project, they conducted their online/offline research, collected and organized their visual assets, synthesized all research and assets to create cohesive “story” presentation of their topics, some created a storyboard or spreadsheet to organize the flow of their exhibit. Finally, they uploaded all of their knowledge assets to our class Cornish ChronoZoom: History of Motion Graphic Design Timeline

Design in Public hosted the 4th Annual Seattle Design Festival (Sept. 5 to 19, 2014). The festival is the largest design-related event in the Pacific Northwest, bringing together an estimated 10,000 attendees to explore all the diverse and meaningful ways that design makes life better. Citizens, city leaders and experts came together through workshops, tours, talks, films and gatherings to exchange ideas around this year’s theme, Design in Motion…exploring the ways design moves us…”from place to place, frame to frame, present to future”, and to see design as a vehicle of innovation. Given this theme, the conference provided an ideal opportunity for my students to engage as presenters.

• Our session was titled, “Cornish Students Visualize the History of Motion Design at SDF”. It was part of a block of presentations  given by my Cornish designer/educator colleagues, Julie Myers (Designing for Flight and Digital Objects in Motion), Tiffany Laine De Mott (Frames in Motion), Dan Shafer (Freeboards: Analog Interaction and Public Messaging), that was held at the Seattle Public Library.
• Mekala Nava shared her Early History of 2D Animation, William Kingstone presented The Evolution of Styles in Sci-Fi Television and Petra Michael shared the History of Western Fantasy Role Playing Games via their interactive ChronoZoom timelines. Over the course of the summer and first few weeks of school, these 3 students refined their research and prepared their interactive presentations. By the time they presented to this design conference community, they had transformed themselves from students to scholars, with truly engaging research and innovative presentation methods.
• We kept an ongoing list of our UX and UI feedback using CZ and shared them directly with the development team at Moscow State University to help create user enhancements for a wider engagement of the ChronoZoom user community.