Narrative Art Assignment
The 4-Icon Challenge
Download the PDF of the Narrative Art Assignment here
Due by class Tuesday, Oct 30th
Narrative Art is art that tells a story. You have encountered many examples of narrative art over the course of this semester. In this assignment, you are asked to reduce the storyline of a work of art to its basic elements. For example, for the Victory Stele of Naram-Sin, the basic elements might be “ruler, mountain, soldiers, the conquered.” Next, take these basic elements and reduce them further to simple icons.
In Icon Form, the Victory Stele of Naram-Sin might look like this:
Instructions
- Choose any example of narrative art from your textbook to work on. Your example must be a work of art. You can make your own icons or find ones on the web as I did for the example above.
- Write a 250-word paragraph explaining your choice of icons to represent the narrative in your work of art.
This assignment is modeled on the 4-icon challenge by the graphic designer Kyle Tezak. Take a look at how Tezak reduces his favorite books and movies to 4 icons at http://kyletezak.com/portfolio/the-four-icon-challenge/. Please remember that you must reduce a work of art to 4 icons, not a movie nor a movie.
You may submit your assignment on paper, as a blog post, or via email by Tuesday, Oct 30th.
