Storytelling Through Color: Accessibility + Black ‘American’ history (SBLTN Lab Notes 046)
Animated films for Black history, digital library of printed collateral from film + broadcast, & color accessibility tips
IN THE MARGINS
We all have to start somewhere, right?
Thanks to Amy of
for writing about “the art of sucking at your hobbies but doing them anyway” because it made me pause and reflect on past stages of my life where I was just starting something.No one likes to be a beginner, they say. But over the years, I’ve embraced it. Yes, learning new things can be uncomfortable. You may feel stupid and “behind” others. You’re afraid to talk about something because what if case someone questions you or knows more than you? But what I found is that there’s SO much freedom in those early stages. Just like kids are so innocent before societal norms shape their beliefs and actions. When you’re a beginner, you don’t have the constraints of “best practices” or overbearing advice from industry vets. You don’t know what you don’t know and in that unknown is so much space for innocent creativity and vulnerability. You can say, do, and create whatever you want just because you can and also because you “don’t know any better”.
❓ QUESTION: What are you willing to suck at today?
ACCESSIBILITY
Accessibility-In-Practice: Don’t rely solely on color
I got some great feedback when I showed how I tackled color accessibility for client work, so thanks for the people that let me know! Moving forward, I’ll be showing more examples of “accessibility in practice” aka real life examples of implementing (or confronting) accessibility.
Let’s kick it off!
Turns out ‘junk’ mail is a great place to go digging for design inspiration. A performance theater sent their calendar and I immediately thought “ooh, this is accessible”.
They used shapes to work WITH the color-coding. For example, if there is a post-performance discussion on a specific day, that day is colored in blue AND it has a white triangle. If someone is color-blind, they could still figure out what is being communicated.
When buying concert tickets online, I often see that the seating charts are monochromatic or the seat label only appears when you hover your mouse over the seat.
This can be inaccessible for people who are color-blind or have low vision. And I don’t know about you but when I’m in ticket-buying-panic-mode, I need things clear and simple! (Screw Ticketmaster, btw). So remember, don’t rely solely on color - add static labels/text, a key/legend, or other visual indicators like patterns.
DIVERSITY & INCLUSION
Bringing light to a heavy topic
The United States has finally begun to recognize June 19 “Juneteenth” as a federal holiday (but it’s still sticky who gets the day off work or not 😑). A quick Google search will fill you in but TL;DR is palm-colored folks wanted to maintain their power so Black slaves were hella late to find out that they were actually free.
A movie about the Transatlantic Slave Trade wouldn’t exactly break MCU box office records but this short animated film about it should hopefully break some false narratives - showing how the commercial success of the USA was built on the backs of enslaved and unpaid labor. I liked how the style wasn’t as overtly grim as I was expecting. The grainy texture, dynamic camera angles, and smooth transitions spoke to the seriousness of the topic but also felt light, in an odd way.
As part of a series of six films that each focus on a different era in the US’s history, the team breaks down how they developed the unique styles - including their process and techniques, type exploration, culling research, and selecting narrators.
Check out snippets of the films and more
Undeniable: The Stories of the Negro Leagues
I’ve dabbled in motion graphics but just don’t have the knack for it. KNowing the work that goes in always makes me appreciate it more.
“Undeniable: The Stories of the Negro Leagues” caught my curiosity with it’s blend of comic bookesque shapes and street caricature artist linework.
“Animation allows us to tell a story with a unique visual language that captures the emotion, mood and nostalgia of that era while giving the action a very cinematic approach that appeals to a younger generation—both young and old love good animation.”
Read the breakdown of an incredible series of films for Major League Baseball, including great female players of the Negro League and the League’s international impact.
ART & DESIGN
A little B&E into an archive of B&M
I’m always trying to get out of the Behance bubble and Pinterest picks so going old school, back to print where all this digital stuff came from anyway, is always refreshing.
Media History Digital Library is a free online resource, featuring millions of pages of books and magazines from the histories of film, broadcasting, and recorded sound. (And yes, designers, 98% of it is public domain!)
I’ve gotten some great layout inspiration. A few of the categories are early cinema, spanish publications, and technical journals. The collections span India, Netherlands, Japan, and more.
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Signing off from the Starship SBLTN,
Laneen (Pronouns: she/they)
🎧 Listening: "The Age of Pleasure" album by Janelle Monáe
💬 Quote: "Our creativity shouldn’t just be for our jobs and roles and public consumption, it should be for the benefit of our entire lives and well-being. As much as we work and build and help others, we also deserve to enjoy our lives and the things we’ve built and live a life that doesn’t always revolve around chasing the next thing." - Melissa, Founder + CEO of #blkcreatives
✔️ Random Fact: Hail storms are common. But, some planets have diamond storms. On Saturn and Jupiter, lightning strikes carbon soot and hardens into graphite. Then, the material becomes pressurized during the storm and becomes a diamond. The result is diamond hail. (🤫 Don’t tell the billionaires…. )
Thanks for the shout out 😭 Also holy cow on that concert seating!! To see the side by side is so helpful. There's honestly no reason the purchasing experience can't be better for everyone but especially accessible.
Also LOVED the quote at the end. Kinda want to print it out and hang it on my wall to remind myself every day.