Today’s goal
Find three possible capstone directions.
Use patterns from yesterday’s Mandala to imagine three projects you could care about for a long time.
You are exploring on paper today. You are not choosing your final capstone yet.
3
What counts as a direction?
A direction is more than a format.
“I want to make a video.”
This names a format, but not a purpose or audience.
“Create a short profile that helps incoming students understand what joining a school team feels like.”
This gives you an audience, a result, and questions to investigate.
Worked example: school sports
One interest can lead three ways.
Help new students understand the commitment behind a team.
Show the people and routines the audience usually misses.
Create posters and graphics that make the team recognizable.
The directions share one interest, but they explore different audiences, results, and skills.
For each possibility
Describe each direction.
Who would experience, use, watch, or care about this?
What would you make, and what should it do for that audience?
What important question can you not answer yet?
If two ideas have the same audience, result, and unknown, they are probably not different directions yet.
Paper prototyping
A small test answers one question.
Sketch six shots to see whether the story has enough visual variety.
Draw a contact sheet to test whether the sequence shows a beginning, middle, and end.
Make two rough layouts to test which one gives the information a clearer order.
A test is not a tiny final project. It should help you learn something before you commit.
Work on paper
Build three directions. Then test one.
- 01Write three genuinely different directions.
Give each one an audience, result, and unknown.
- 02Choose the direction with the most useful question.
Do not choose only because it feels easiest.
- 03Make one small paper test.
Sketch, storyboard, map, write, or compare two layouts.
What evidence would tell you this direction is worth continuing?