Art and Design Students Defining Words With Videos
Art and Design students from the Art 383 Digital Video course developed creative ways to help people define commonly misused or unknown words. The students worked closely with representatives from Dictionary.com to make videos that illustrate the proper use of a word through a unique story.
A shot from Cal Poly student Marion Beachum's video
showing the distinction between "pour"
and "pore"
Sandy Micone is the director of design at Dictionary.com and an alumna of the art and design program at Cal Poly. She contacted the department about the project, and Sky Bergman, Art 383 professor thought it would be a good opportunity for her students.
Micone and two other colleagues from Dictionary.com met with the students via Skype to explain the purpose of the videos and to brainstorm ideas.
"Our goal with making these is to get visitors of Dictionary.com to love us as a brand and not just go to us as a place," said Aileen Morrissey, content strategist from Dictionary.com.
The representatives emphasized that the videos should be informative but eye-catching — much like the video that helped define "Lumbersexual," a project made by Cal Poly student Roslyn Yeager when Dictionary.com came to Cal Poly in 2016. "Lumbersexual pushed the comfort zone of our brand," said Lauren Sliter, head of marketing at Dictionary.com.
The Dictionary.com representatives say "pushing" the brands comfort zone is the goal of the project, but the students have to be very careful that they get the definitions of the words accurate.
Dictionary.com collaborated with Cal Poly students during two quarters. Watch the the resulting student projects below.
2017 Videos
2016 Videos
