Riveted in the Word wins 2024 Design Incubation Scholarship: Creative Work Award
Design Incubation’s Creative Work Award is given to one project a year that “demonstrates originality, scope, rigor, impact on communication design’s theoretical, critical, historical and/or visionary foundations.” Inspired by a true story, Warren Lehrer wrote and designed the multimodal book app in a way that places the reader inside the mind of a retired history professor as she recalls her hard-fought but triumphant journey regaining language after a devastating stroke. The custom interface, programmed in collaboration with electronic literature developer Artemio Morales, toggles between columns of text that readers navigate at their own pace, and animated sections that evoke gaps between perceptions (thoughts, memories, desires) and the words needed to communicate. The immersive book app uses kinetic typography and an original soundtrack by composer, multi-instrumentalist Andrew Griffin. Riveted in the Word was created in the memory of the American history scholar Willie Lee Rose, who Lehrer met 20 years after she suffered a stroke. The project aims to help readers gain awareness of the experience of Broca’s Aphasia. It’s also been selected as recommended reading by the National Aphasia Association (NAA).