Biah S's Senior Project Blog
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Project Title: Only Skin-deep?: The Role of Character Design and Art in How Children Process Digital Games. BASIS Advisor: Brittany Powell Internship Location: Arizona State University Onsite Mentor: Dr. Richard Fabes |
Project Abstract
As digital media becomes increasingly ingrained in children’s lives, it becomes clear that regulating and evaluating the impact this has on impressionable young minds is necessary. Screens are not becoming a less pervasive presence anytime soon, and neither are the effects they have on children’s behavior. For this reason, I believe finding ways to utilize digital media to positively influence behavior will be extremely important moving forward. This can be done through the inclusion of prosocial content and messages in media widely available to children, but what should this content look like? This project aims to determine the factors that go into the stylization of art in children’s media that will best allow for retention of the prosocial themes present. To do this, I am working with Dr. Richard Fabes at the Sanford Harmony Institute at ASU as he and his team develop a digital game promoting cooperation and tolerance among elementary aged children. As a research intern, I look at what has already been done in the realm of digital games and how it can connect to what we are creating. I will use this information and the knowledge I gain from consulting experts on this team to determine what visual factors are most effective in allowing children to fully process the information they are presented with. Ultimately, I hope to discern the aspects of visual art and character design that most effectively assist children’s understanding of media content.
Week 11: Goodbye!
Hello everyone, and welcome to the last post of my senior project blog! I’ve got to finish up my drawings and my presentation and then I’ll be all done. I’d like to use this last post to thank some people that have been such a huge help to me on this project thus far. Of... Read More
Week 10: Digital Doodles
Hello everyone! I hope all of your weeks have been going well. As we’re nearing the end of senior projects, I’ve mainly been drawing and working on finishing up my research, trying to see if I’m missing anything. This is my first time creating art digitally, so it’s been a bit of an adjustment. I... Read More
Week 9: Sketching and Storytelling
Hello everyone, and welcome to week 9! This week I thought I’d talk a little bit about character design itself and what I’ve learned so far from my research. Overall, the number one takeaway I seem to get from most resources on the subject is that character design is about telling a story, communicating important... Read More
Week 8: Disney and Detail
Welcome back! I hope you all have been having a good week. This week I’ll be discussing some of the categories I haven’t covered thus far, namely abstraction (which I’m thinking of rebranding to stylization) and level of detail. I still have some more research to do on these two, but I thought I’d share... Read More
Week 7: Color Correlations
Welcome back everyone, and thanks for tuning in for this week’s post! This time I’ll be discussing my research on color and its impact on children. One very obvious way colors can be used to influence children is color psychology and the different emotions and concepts we learn to associate different colors with. Red often... Read More
Week 6: All About Art
Hi everyone! I hope you all had a lovely spring break. This week I’m doing more research on art and the effect it can have on children. Since this whole project is about determining how art in animation can be stylized to have a positive impact on their younger audiences, I needed to first determine... Read More
Spring Break
Hello everyone! I hope you're all having a marvelous spring break. I'll be taking a break this week as well, but I look forward to getting back into my project soon. See you all then! Read More
Week 4: Discrimination and Data
Hello everyone, and welcome back to my senior project blog! This week I thought I’d update you all about what’s been going on at my site placement. I sat in on another meeting for the planning of the video game, which expanded on the ideas of relationship formation and cooperation that were brought up during... Read More
Week 3: TV Today and Talking Dogs
Hello everyone, and welcome to week 3! This week I’ve been researching current children’s media with prosocial themes, looking into both what’s been put out in recent years and what’s most viewed among young audiences. One thing I quickly noticed was the frequency of prosocial messaging in television as opposed to digital games. TV shows... Read More
Week 2: Social Connection and Sea Creatures
Welcome back, and thank you for tuning in for week two of my senior project blog! I’ve been continuing work on my spreadsheet, and I’ve actually been finding some pretty interesting games through my research. Most shipwreck games follow the predictable pattern of landing on an island and having to complete tasks to survive, but... Read More
Week 1: Shipwrecks and Spreadsheets
Hello all, and welcome to the first official week of my senior project! To recap, I’m working with a team at ASU in the process of developing a video game for children that’s based around a shipwreck storyline. My main task at my site placement is to look into what’s already been done in the... Read More
Welcome!
Hello everyone, and welcome to my senior project blog! My name is Biah, and I will be completing my project on stylization and character design in animated children’s media. More specifically, I’ll be looking at how these visual factors influence how effective pieces of media are on instilling prosocial messaging in young children. “Prosocial” may... Read More