Engaged Researcher Online - Illustrate Your Research

Beginners

You don’t think you are creative? Think again! This course is all about discovering easily accessible methods of visual storytelling to make your research more engaging. Visualisations are key to successful research story telling (and often research processes itself). They can help engage wide audiences effectively as well as communicate research quickly and intuitively to a wide range of audiences. This course will introduce you to a range of illustration techniques using simple exercises to get you started on illustrating your own research, and feel more confident in working with visual material. No previous knowledge or special equipment required.

The trainer will work with you personally to develop your new creative skills and to get started with your very own research visualisation.

The course will be led by Sally Stevens. Sally is an artist and animator based in Bristol, UK. Her moving image work encompasses 2D animation techniques including hand-drawn and paper cut-out, as well as video editing. She is interested in the use of animation in relation to performance, in visual analogy as a scientific tool, and has a fascination with composition and with the timing of things. She has a background in illustration and music, and has worked with theatre, orchestras and music groups to produce visual material for live events as well as video. She studied Animation MA at the Royal College of Art and since graduating has worked as a freelancer in London and Bristol, for clients including The Jersey Maritime Museum, The School of Life, the Disney Channel, M&C Saatchi, and Sound UK.

• PhD students
• Post-docs
• Researchers
• Public Engagement Professionals

Number of sessions: 3

• The science behind using story and visualisation to convey information
• How to identify and visualise the most interesting aspects of your research
• Developing metaphor and analogy
• Basic introduction to the processes of drawing, and of making illustrations, using different mediums including found material and collage
• Quick exercises to get you generating visual ideas relevant to your research area

Explore with participants:

• various techniques to use visualisations in research engagement and communication
• various techniques to integrate illustration into visualisations
• the basics of illustration

After the course participants will be able to:

• use illustration for engagement and visual storytelling
• generate a story

Good internet connection: the course will be held on Microsoft Teams.

Creative work often starts with inspiration and an inspiration board or folder can be great to get into the right mind-set.

In preparation of the course it is very useful to gather all visual material that you might want to use. This can be pictures or videos from your research, or visualisations from the web that you find inspiring. Please do collect all materials in one folder or one PowerPoint presentation. Feel free to add anything you like, this can also be colours or fonts you love or creative work from others that you find interesting.

Please also come to the workshop with a fairly clear idea of one or two ideas or concepts that you want to visualise, or explain to your audience.

Mon (Session 1)

• Introduction to using and producing visualisations for your research

Wed (Optional session 2)

• Mentoring time for questions or one-on-one advise

Fri (Session 3)

• Showcase and presentation of the produced illustrations

If you have troubles joining the sessions or have any queries, please contact Selen Etingu-Breslaw (selen.etingubreslaw@admin.cam.ac.uk).

One 90-minute and one 60-minute mandatory sessions, one optional 15-min one-to-one session with the trainer.

• Engaged Researcher - Animate your research
• Engaged Researcher Online - Photography To Communicate Your Research
• Engaged Researcher Online - Video training: Shooting and Editing

• Communication
• Presentation Skills
• Public Engagement