NPR’s Planet Money Makes A T-shirt is a multimedia project worth being envious of. It not only includes elements of video and text, but also an abundance of graphics that truly bring the story to life. Who knew that a story about making a t-shirt could be so fascinating?
I particularly enjoy the video introductions that mark the beginning of each chapter. They add just the right touch of personality, while also being extremely informative. I feel that without visual elements such as these, not as many people would be interested in following the story. That’s the great thing about multimedia, it makes people want to follow the story from start to finish.
NPR also did a fantastic job of breaking this up into sections (or chapters). This allows people to skip around if they want to, or just to know what each part of the project will cover. Each section is short enough and has enough visual elements as to not be tedious to a reader, but it still gets the main point across. I found it especially interesting to read and watch the video about the process of making cotton into yarn. That’s always been something that I’ve been curious about, so being able to see it broken down in the way that it was by NPR was incredible.
I know for certain that my group’s final multimedia project will be nothing like this one. For one thing, NPR had a team of 10 reporters, had the opportunity to report on three different continents and had months to put together their project. We only have a couple of weeks, have a group of four people and are bound to Columbia. Even so, I plan to use this project as a model for what I would like our final project to be. The layout, the use of graphics and the way in which text is dispersed throughout the entire story are elements that I hope to introduce to my own project. I can only hope that it will be even half the quality that NPR’s t-shirt story is.
Allyson Vasilopulos 