Passive voice
Children’s areas in libraries tend to have the bare-bone necessities: children’s books, a few stuffed animals, and perhaps a soft surface where the children can lie down and read. The new children’s area would be a place for children to touch surfaces while learning to read braille through tactile design. The designated area would be designed as an educational tool to engage not only children, but adults as well. Library patrons would be able to see, hear, and touch as they move through the space. Through furniture and tactile surfaces, the space would be able to tell stories through braille.
The thesis is not going to focus on traditional typography, but instead will address the connection between braille and standard letterforms. Using touch as a communication tool and giving lower sighted people more access to the written word is an area of great interest to me.
2 responses so far ↓
Ellen Lupton // October 6, 2008 at 11:45 am
You are effectively describing the thesis environment as an active place. Visitors will go there and do active things (touch, see, hear, move, etc), and the space itself will be active (tell stories, address connections, use touch, etc).
In terms of writing style, your sentences tend to follow a similar pattern. There’s a lot of repetition here of the “would be” construction.
You are not really experimenting with voice or point of view. I would be interested to see you describe the space from different users’ points of view, for example. What will a parent or child experience when they enter the space?
Jennifer Cole Phillips // October 13, 2008 at 12:43 am
I think you can bring the subject to life more. Imagine experiencing the space/tactile offerings as a clint (low sighted or blind parent/child). You might get some colorful more specific language through the interviews you are conducting.