Jane Alison’s discussion of narrative included some eye opening thoughts. Thinking of narrative as different potential shapes helped me, as mostly visual learner, to visualize what a story’s experience might look like. Radial and circular narratives create a different experience than the typical arc or wave. The “explosion” example was most interesting to me. Alison describes radial or explosive narratives as those centered on a certain event or idea within the story, from which all other elements are related and pulled toward. I appreciated the notion of form and “shape ordering life.”
Alison’s article was insightful but heavy with references and while I understand how narrative in writing relates to narrative in design, I felt overwhelmed by some of the writing references and had a hard time relating this reading to my own work as a designer. Still, I think I did get a broad understanding of what Alison was trying to say: that narrative can take different shapes and that we should allow our stories to organically take those shapes rather than fitting into a traditional one, because humanity and life can’t always fit into a traditional shape.
Narrative Design Fall 2019 