https://aurora.auburn.edu/handle/11200/3978 2026-04-08T17:42:51Z 2026-04-08T17:42:51Z https://aurora.auburn.edu/handle/11200/50704 2025-07-29T21:18:01Z

Implementing Design Principles to Improve Scientific Communication and Modeling Via Game Board Development While the disciplines of science and visual communication are often relegated to their own fields, interdisciplinary collaboration can result in modeling tools with a higher standard for public engagement. For modeling tools to be effective in the public sphere, visual communication principles need to be more thoroughly integrated into the initial stages of development. To resolve this missed opportunity, this article presents three visual communication principles—visual hierarchy, color accessibility, and informational constraints—and presents one modeling tool, in the form of an educational board game, as a case study to understand the significance of their application. The board game at hand, Satellite Tycoon, is a modeling device used to evaluate the balance between market penetration and space sustainability in a publicly accessible format. Through an iterative set of play tests, visual communication principles function as variables to improve the model’s effectiveness. In practice, the application of design principles to Satellite Tycoon led to numerous visual changes that emphasize essential game features, clarify the relationship between game pieces, and remove extraneous information. Collectively, these communicative changes improved ease of adoption and reduced playtime, making the modeling tool accessible to a wider public while maintaining informational complexity. Such successes in the interdisciplinary collaboration between science and visual communication can act as a precedent for continuing interdisciplinary collaborations.

https://aurora.auburn.edu/handle/11200/50647 2024-08-07T18:34:57Z

Mycography and Biodesign Pedagogy: Concepts and Methods for Creating Living Posters This paper presents the outcomes from one design studio taught in the School of Industrial and Graphic Design at Auburn University. Students were introduced to the field of biodesign, a relatively nascent field that combines design and biology. Biodesign is a broad domain with practices that range from discursive to utilitarian and whose outcomes may be material or conceptual. This studio focused on the creation of a biodesign project that was material and discursive. In other words, students used living microorganisms to create images that promote reflection and discussion. Students began by learning an experimental image-making process, referred to here as mycography, which uses microorganisms from the fungi kingdom in lieu of ink or photo paper. Similar to darkroom photography, mycography may use light to create an image from a negative. Next, students were asked to create living images that expressed their relationship with the natural environment. Their design organism was Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which is more commonly known as brewer's yeast or baker's yeast. After numerous initial tests, they created living posters that were 30 cm x 40 cm (12 in x 16 in). Unsurprisingly, in a time of ubiquitous ecological disruption, their posters expressed concern about our changing climate. The living posters that students created acted as a call-to-action and conveyed a sense of urgency about environmental degradation. At the same time, using a living organism as a design material provided a vital learning analogy for students: the images created with brewer's yeast resisted complete control and mimicked our relationship with the natural world. Through hands-on making with another organism, students gained a greater sense of agency while also recognizing the impact that design can have on other organisms.

https://aurora.auburn.edu/handle/11200/50521 2023-05-26T08:30:11Z

The art of environmental personhood and the possibility of environmental statehood This paper examines the impact that the concept of environmental personhood has had on art and culture, and suggests that projects such as The Embassy of the North Sea hint at the possibility of environmental statehood. First, it reviews how the Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui River Claims Settlement) Act 2017 – which granted juridical personhood to the Whanganui River in New Zealand – inspired the creation of new works such as Weathering, Embedding: Ochopee Trail, terra0, A Voice for the Eel, and F/EEL. Next, a heuristic model called the agency-personhood continuum (APC) is used to identify the aesthetic tropes of environmental personhood. Analysis indicates that artworks that represent environmental personhood often utilize strategies of amplification, translation, performance, time compression, and metonymy. Finally, this paper seeks to encourage new discussions by suggesting that The Embassy of the North Sea and “Theatre of Negotiations” anticipate the concept of environmental statehood, which has the potential to provide greater protections for natural entities that span multiple countries – such as the Amazon River, the Andes, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Pacific Ocean. Theoretically, environmental statehood could also provide greater representation in supra-governmental assemblies such as the UN General Assembly. Ultimately, this article suggests that the culture-law feedback loop for environmental personhood presents a new ontological paradigm that provides greater recognition of the agency, identity, and sovereignty of natural entities.