Knight Lab, based at Northwestern University, is an open, collaborative space for interdisciplinary research and learning by students and professionals. The Lab has developed several ways to create interactive media to visualize and display information to better communicate and enrich your narrative.
Juxtapose allows you to tell stories by comparing photos and GIFs. It works well for then-and-now stories about incremental changes (city skyline growth, forest regrowth, the development of cities, etc.) or before-and-after stories about dramatic events (before and after images of a particular war or an image following a natural disaster).
SceneJS is an open-source JavaScript library that facilitates the creation of 3D web graphics and interactive scenes, enabling developers to build immersive and dynamic web applications by defining the spatial relationships and visual elements within a 3D virtual environment. It offers a powerful framework for rendering and animating complex 3D scenes in web browsers, making it suitable for applications like games, simulations, and data visualization.
Soundcite is a JavaScript library designed for web publishers and journalists to easily integrate audio clips and sound elements into their online articles, creating an immersive and interactive reading experience for users by allowing them to play audio directly within the text. This tool enhances storytelling and reporting by enabling the inclusion of sound bites, interviews, or ambient sounds alongside written content.
StorylineJS is an open-source tool that enables users to create interactive, multimedia-driven timelines for the web, combining text, images, videos, and other media to tell engaging, chronological stories or display historical data in a visually compelling format. It offers a user-friendly interface for building and customizing timelines, making it a valuable resource for journalists, educators, and content creators.
Storymap is an open-source tool that allows users to create interactive, map-based narratives by combining location data with text, images, and multimedia content to tell spatially-driven stories on the web, making it a valuable resource for sharing geographically relevant information and engaging storytelling. It offers a user-friendly platform for content creators to build customized, location-based narratives, making it particularly useful for educators, journalists, and those interested in geographic storytelling.
Storymap also allows you to map images. Click here to see an example!
TimelineJS is an open-source web-based tool that enables users to easily create interactive and visually appealing timelines to showcase chronological information, making it ideal for displaying historical events, storytelling, or data presentation on websites. It integrates with various media types, including text, images, videos, and maps, enhancing the storytelling and information-sharing experience.
Infographics are important for relaying information to your audience because they condense complex data and concepts into visually digestible and engaging formats, enhancing comprehension and retention of information. Their visual appeal and ability to simplify content make them highly effective for conveying key messages and information to your specific audience.
Piktochart is a web-based design tool that empowers users to easily create and customize infographics, presentations, posters, and other visual content, even without extensive design skills, providing a versatile platform for visually communicating information and data effectively. It offers a range of templates, icons, and features to help individuals and businesses design professional-looking graphics and presentations for a variety of purposes, from data visualization to marketing materials.
Canva is a versatile graphic design platform that offers a wide range of tools, templates, and resources to empower individuals and businesses to create professional-quality graphics, documents, and visual content for various purposes, from social media posts and marketing materials to presentations and printed materials, without the need for extensive design expertise. It provides an intuitive, user-friendly interface that simplifies the design process and has become popular for its accessibility and collaborative features.
Adobe Express is a content creation platform that provides tools for making and sharing various types of content, such as social media posts, stories, ads, banners, logos, flyers, and more. It is designed to be simple, intuitive, and fast, making it suitable for students, educators, social media creators, small businesses, and knowledge workers. Adobe Express is available on both mobile and web platforms, offering thousands of templates for creating standout content. It is part of Adobe's Creative Cloud suite and is cloud-based, allowing access from any device with an internet connection.
Audacity is a powerful, free, open-source audio editor widely used for various audio editing and recording tasks. It is popular for podcast production, sound design, music creation, and quick audio work. Audacity offers features for real-time effects, time-stretching loops to tempo, and more, making it suitable for both beginners and advanced users. It is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, and it remains free and open source, meaning “Audacity is free, forever.” Audacity is also known for its user-friendly interface, community support, and extensive third-party plugin support.
CapCut is a free, all-in-one video editing tool. It is available as both a mobile app and a desktop application, offering a wide range of video editing and graphic design features. These features include keyframe animation, slow motion, chroma key, stabilization, auto-captions, text-to-speech, motion tracking, and background removal. CapCut is designed to be user-friendly, catering to both beginners and advanced users, and it is suitable for creating content for various platforms such as TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook.
GarageBand is a digital audio workstation (DAW) and music creation software developed by Apple that runs exclusively on macOS and iOS devices. GarageBand is designed to be user-friendly and accessible, making it suitable for beginners as well as more experienced musicians and producers.
OpenShot is a free and open-source video editor available for Linux, Mac, and Windows. It offers a range of features for creating videos with effects, titles, and audio tracks. OpenShot also provides a Video Editing Cloud API, allowing automation and customization of video editing. It is designed to be simple and powerful, making it suitable for both beginners and advanced users.
PodCastle.ai is a web-based platform that enables podcasters and other creators to record, edit, and enhance their content with the power of AI. It provides tools for creating professional-quality podcasts, including features such as AI-generated voices, hosting, and editing capabilities. The platform allows users to create and host their content with the assistance of AI, offering simplicity and ease of use. It also provides the ability to transcribe and export content. PodCastle.ai is designed to be user-friendly and offers a one-stop solution for various podcasting needs.
Riverside.fm is a web-based service and app that provides a platform for recording podcasts and videos. Riverside.fm is known for its user-friendly interface and is useful for those new to audio editing. The platform allows for the recording of remote interviews with both audio and video, offering the ability to record locally and independently without the need for an internet connection.
Adobe InDesign is available to all students via the Creative Cloud. InDesign allows you to create page layouts for print and digital publishing. You're able to make dynamic books, pamphlets, magazines, and other publishing materials.
Adobe Creative Cloud is available to students on an as-needed basis. To be assigned a site license for Adobe Creative Cloud, ask.Butler says, "Please have your instructor submit a case to Information Technology (click Create New Case on this page) with specific course information."
Further information on installation is available from the ask.butler site HERE.
Microsoft Publisher is a desktop publishing application from Microsoft, differing from Microsoft Word in that the emphasis is placed on page layout and graphic design rather than text composition and proofreading.
This software app is available to you through Butler University's subscription to Microsoft 365. Installation information is available through the Online Support Desk: HERE.
A reminder: Microsoft software is not freeware or open source / open access. The license you have while a student is valid until 30 days after you leave Butler. At that point, unless you choose to purchase a subscription, you will no longer have access to the software. Any files you have created will remain accessible and on your computer.
Scribus provides an InDesign-like interface and a lot more features than you'd expect from a free package.
With a dedicated and enthusiastic developer community behind it, it's stable to use and regularly updated, with all the DTP features you'd hope for including support for OpenType, CMYK colours, spot colours, ICC colour management and versatile PDF creation. There are also some surprising extras like vector drawing tools, emulation of colour blindness and the rendering of markup languages like LaTeX or Lilypond.
You should be able to get up and running quickly thanks to its helpful forums and documentation, and the software even comes with a free selection of templates for things like business cards, brochures and newsletters.
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