Participants:
1-3 people
Time:
from 15 to 60 min
Materials needed:
Pens, Pencils, Coloured felt-tips, Miro
Process step: Define opportunity
9 dots

Design-Thinking method: Image telling

Images are the most immediate means of communication. Image telling consists of assembling and creating images using different materials (photos, newspaper clippings, coloured paper, ribbons...) to describe or depict situations, concepts, desires, emotions etc... This versatile technique is useful to describe contexts, interactions, patterns of use and typical users, as well as more intangible concepts that are harder to express in words (suggestions, emotional states...). Visualization helps to identify what criteria and requirements are needed to achieve the project's goal.

How to:

  1. Carefully determine what should be communicated or depicted (such as the context, feeling, type of user...).
  2. Find and collect useful material for the collage representation of the message to be represented. Use images (newspaper clippings, photos, drawings...) and different materials (such as coloured paper, ribbons, thread, cotton...). It can be useful to begin collecting a large quantity of images and materials without worrying about whether/when they will be assembled/used, considering only the message to be conveyed.
  3. Define the orientation, structure, alignment, axis, foreground and background of the composition with sketches.
  4. Make an initial selection of materials, and practice assembling them into trial compositions. Choosing a background image on which to apply details and other images and/or materials might be useful.
  5. If the completed composition adequately reflects the features to be depicted, move on by pasting all the elements on a stiff backing. It is important to never lose sight of the composition's objective, and of what it should communicate: what matters is not the aesthetic value of the final image, but what it is able to convey!
  6. It can be helpful to use different cutting techniques (tearing, piercing...) and materials, to provide the image with a multi-sensory dimension.
  7. Once the image is complete, use it as a tool to prompt reflection,defining the design’s criteria and requirements.

You can download the IDEActivity method cards from the Materials page, along with all the other Resources in the course.

Resources