Publications differ from advertisements in one important way: they remain. An ad may circulate for a season; an article settles into libraries, databases, and citation lists. The five publications presented here relate—directly or indirectly—to graphic design, typography, multimedia, and virtual environments. In each case, my contribution was less about decoration and more about structure: how information is shaped, framed, and made legible.
In this publication, my role in this collaborative research was to design the expanded (annotated) captions used in educational videos. These were not merely subtitles, but layered textual supports intended to clarify terminology and reinforce learning. The study demonstrated that such captions were more effective than standard ones—a rare and satisfying moment when typography could be measured, not just admired.
Anderson-Inman, L., Terrazas, F., & Slabin, U. (2009). Supported eText in captioned videos: A comparison of expanded versus standard captions on student comprehension of educational content. Journal of Special Education Technology, 24(3), 21–34. https://doi.org/10.1177/016264340902400303
This was a typographic mini-research project conducted independently. I examined the presence of blackletter in Oregon press and signage, and the publication itself became part of the argument: title set in blackletter, text carefully structured, illustrations developed to echo historical forms. Everything—from headline to ornament—was mine. Tradition, it turns out, is not fragile; it simply needs thoughtful context.
Slabin, U. (2021, May). Blackletter: Tradition is alive. The Bleed, 12, 36–37.
This was primarily an essay, but it includes an illustration I developed in Adobe Illustrator specifically for the piece. The visual component carries the rhetorical weight. The floral lettering EPONYMS incorporates characters derived from an alphabet by Tang, sourced via Rawpixel—a detail that proved unexpectedly fitting for the theme.
Slabin, U. (2023). Should eponyms be kept? Emphatic yes. Journal of Baltic Science Education, 22(2), 188–191. https://doi.org/10.33225/jbse/23.22.188
Three publications below document my long-standing engagement with the virtual environment Second Life. In one, colleagues and I reflected on the platform’s academic history, illustrated with photographs taken inworld; I also built the featured Lane Community College structure shown there.
Another focuses on art education in Oregon schools, where teachers met on a virtual island I developed and maintained. The publication includes an inworld photograph I took of a session discussing Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Park—a scene in which, apart from the teacher avatars, the entire environment was designed and constructed by me.
Earlier, in a separate publication, I presented the use of Second Life for chemistry education, documenting a virtual laboratory I built as a counterpart to a real facility at Linn-Benton Community College. Recreating real spaces in virtual form remains, to me, a design problem: gravity may be optional, but structure is not.
Slabin, U. (2021, May). Second Life of Oregon academia. The Bleed, 12, 42–44.
Blending virtual reality and in-person training in Oregon. (2016). Arts in Education Quarterly Newsletter, 2(4).
Slabin, U. (2018). Building molecules in a virtual laboratory. In Priorities of Pedagogy and Contemporary Education. [In Russian] Collected articles of International Scientific Conference, Penza. 120–124.
