Library Friends Webinar - Visual Storytelling and the Archives: Translating Scientific Research for Public Audiences

Join us for our first Library Friends Webinar of the year where we learn how advanced typography students in the Graphic Design program found unexpected inspiration during a visit to the University Archives. Students examined how scientific records are documented, preserved, and communicated over time. Tasked with translating complex research for public audiences—and drawing from archival materials, such as letters from alumnus John C. Houbolt who served as Chief Aeronautical Scientist at NASA—the visit shaped how students transformed dense, abstract information into engaging typographic systems, visual explanations, and narrative-driven design artifacts. The visit also underscored the interdisciplinary value of archives and how their materiality—along with the information archives contain—can illuminate the development and exchange of scientific knowledge.