West HS/MS Awards Book

In Brief

The Need: Create an awards narrative telling the story of the school district from the loss of its middle school to the opening of the new combined school and community center.

Skills In This Case Study:

  • Art Direction
  • Content Writing

The Result: A compelling book documenting the human story of West ISD and the human-centered design process of the new HS/MS.

Refined Requirements

In order to tell what was both an emotional story and document the process of design, a series of needs were identified:

Art Direction Needs:

  • A unified visual language that let the story stand forward
  • Compelling photography of the before/after states of the the site, the citizens, and the new school
  • Design artifacts from the architectural process

Narrative Needs:

  • A comprehensive story showing how human centered design filled emotional, educational, and community needs of the city
  • Interviews and artifacts from appropriate people in the process

Research

To create this book, research took place to understand both the awards selection criteria (both stated and assessed from previous award winners), the subject of our submission, and how to best combine all three.

  • Previous award winner submissions were reviewed. The architectural project and the submission narrative for each winner were examined
  • Architecture periodicals and feeds were looked at as well for narrative and art direction cues
  • For the design of infographics, previous winners were reviewed again in reference against current design trends
  • All three factors were used to build the art direction and narrative from artifacts, interviews, and timelines

Content Structure

Research completed, the content structure would be as follows:

  • Document the West, Texas explosion in general, then focus on the impacts on the school district
  • Illustrate the three year timeline from loss of the old structures to the opening day of the new campus, centering the human impact of the entire story
  • Cover the holistic design strategy of the new HS/MS from an educational environment standpoint
  • Bring the physical environment of the HS/MS to light through infographics and process artifacts
  • Ensure all of the above kept human-centered design front and center