Transmedia Design Framework

The book focuses on Transmedia Design, a field of research that allows researchers and practitioners to analyse, develop, and manage multichannel narrative-based communication systems.
Transmedia practice has arisen from tacit knowledge and, furthermore, from a whole host of people benefiting from a significant amount of professional experience; people who operate according to non-explicit knowledge that has been changed by tradition. This is the reason why the planning process of narrative worlds and their distribution into multiple channels has not been regulated but, on the contrary, it follows a learning by doing approach: an approach that hails from a Renaissance studio model recovered from the design field.
If we seek to apply the potential of this discipline to other areas compared to those classic areas connected to the world of entertainment, it is therefore necessary to develop a model founded upon a design practice that derives from the professional world. Or rather, we need to identify a set of interpretive instruments and guidelines for its very planning.
The work aims to identify the main features of transmedia projects, to build a glossary that can be shared and to present an original framework: a conceptual and operational tool for designing multichannel narrative-based environments.
In doing so, the book is aimed, on the one hand, at the scientific community in the field of design and, on the other hand, at practitioners, offering a description of the state of the art, national and international case studies and applied research experience.

Mariana Ciancia, is currently researcher (Design Department, Politecnico di Milano) and lecturer (School of Design, Politecnico di Milano and Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore). She holds a PhD in Design from the Politecnico di Milano. Her research deals with new media and participatory culture, with the aim of understanding how multichannel phenomena (crossmedia and transmedia) are changing the processes of production, distribution and consumption of narrative environments. National and international publications include a book (Transmedia Design Framework. Un approccio design-oriented alla Transmedia Practice, 2016), articles (International Journal of Transmedia Literacy, 2015; Ottagono, 2013), and book chapters on transmedia phenomena, narrative formats, and audiovisual artefacts (Exploring Transmedia Journalism in the Digital Age, 2018; Present Scenarios of Media Production and Engagement, 2017; Narrazioni d'impresa. Per essere ed essere visti, 2013; Visioni Urbane. Narrazioni per il design della città sostenibile, 2012).