The School of Tomorrow
PERSONAL PROJECT • WEB & INFORMATION DESIGN
— is a scrollytelling (scroll + storytelling) digital experience around the investigation of design as a tool in education and learning environments within digital nativism.
Role
Designer
Copywriter
Designer
Copywriter
Team
Valerie E. Lianggara
Valerie E. Lianggara
Skills
Research
Web DesignInformation Architecture
Design System
Research
Web DesignInformation Architecture
Design System
Tools
Figma
HTML / CSS
Javascript
Figma
HTML / CSS
Javascript
Timeline
April - May 2021
April - May 2021
The Challenge
As part of my final year as an undergraduate at Central Saint Martins, we were tasked to complete a capstone project in the form of a designed report. The report acts as a dissertation that should be an academic exploration and investigation with around 5000 words.
Growing up, education has always piqued my curiosity as I personally never enjoyed going to school. As a designer, I'm continually learning and searching for opportunities to inject design as a means of problem-solving in the realm of technology. This prompted my interest in how education and learning experiences have evolved within the past few years, especially in today's digital age. From this, I proceeded to conduct research in this specific area of topic to support my investigation in the report.
The Solution
Digital nativism is taking over our world; we are entering a society where almost everything is digital. Especially with the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, almost the entire world have personally struggled and have no choice but to rely on technology and the Internet to continue living. There has been debate on whether or not the heavy reliance on digital platforms to learn and grow is effective.
Due to my focus on education in today’s digital age, I decided to design my report in a form of a website. Hence, The School of Tomorrow was born, which aims to share how the utilisation of technology in digital nativism can support in enhancing human connection and interaction within learning environments. The intention is not to tell the audience what to believe, but rather to empower them to critically examine the information they receive by providing comprehensive information with nicely designed structure.
*featured at Central Saint Martins Graduate Show 2021 🥳
RESEARCH
Contextual Inquiry & Summary
The main focus of the challenge was the academic exploration in the form of a report. Due to this, I focused more of my time towards the investigation itself. This was a process that took 5 months, starting from January to May 2021. It involved numerous 1:1 calls with my personal tutor, trips to the library and constant academic research through articles, documentaries, websites, etc. Because it is primarily in the form of a report, my writing contains the in-depth research I conducted. Feel free to download a PDF of my report below.
How might we...
create a digital experience to tell the story of how design may act as a tool in education and learning experiences within digital nativism??
EXPLORE
Form and Structure
When it came to designing the report, I wanted to create a digital experience to echo the topic of technological advancements as the main focus of my writing. Digital experiences can be conducted in different formats. I brainstormed several options and it seemed like creating a website was the most ideal structure.
Deciding on the creation of a website, I ideated different structures for the website. I wanted to play around with the scrolling feature, as it gives off a storytelling and information processing structure. I created wireframes for both horizontal and vertical scrolling, but decided to move forward with the vertical scrolling.
Option 1: Vertical Scroll
Option 2: Horizontal Scroll
Visual Guidelines
For the visual elements of The School of Tomorrow, I used an outlined style that is hand in hand with the main logo. The outlined style is used to echo with the theme of today’s modern world, as it gives off a minimal and modern looking feel.
With blue as the main colour that represents the education and tech industry, different shades of blue are used throughout the system. Elements such as typefaces and layouts are designed in a clean and calming style to ensure an easily comprehendable and read experience. The goal is to ultimately reduce visual burden when the reader is digesting all the information.
DESIGN
Final Experience
REFLECTION
Key Takeaways
As this was my capstone project, I definitely enjoyed the freedom that came with responding to a brief I designed myself. Being able to explore and conduct research on a topic that I am wholeheartedly passionate about is one of the most rewarding and blessed feelings. My dissertation gave me the chance to delve into ideas and concepts that are extremely relevant to my practise. As this piece of writing heavily links to my third year projects: afterhours. and Assembly, it allowed me to constantly reflect and grow, both as a designer and as a storyteller.
I would like to thank my personal context tutor, Paul Rennie, for constantly enlightening my curious mind and feeding it with both historical and modern references. What story we choose to tell and put out in the world wide web are manifestations of our interests, and this digital experience contains mine. Just like how I mentioned in the conclusion of my writing that the world is constantly innovating, us humans will persistently craft novel approaches to the numerous obstacles we encounter. Change is inevitable, and I am excited to see how education and learning experiences will continually do so in the future.