Into the Abyss

Into the Abyss – A (theoretical) journey into a black hole | See the prototype

During the module «Infographic & Visual Storytelling» for the HF Interaction Design at the Schule für Gestaltung Zürich, we explored the fundamentals of communicating complex topics through visuals and narrative. We started with the core idea that visual learning is essential, and that infographics help distill complex data into clear, digestible visuals, while storytelling connects information in engaging, accessible ways.

For my project, I chose to create a short scrollytelling experience about something that has always fascinated me: the journey into a black hole. I created a short pitch to set the tone:

Black holes: massive, mysterious, and inescapable. Let’s jump into one. This interactive infographic guides the audience on a step-by-step descent into a black hole, revealing the bizarre physics, unimaginable forces, and surreal visual distortions one would experience – from the outside all the way to the singularity.

It’s presented in an interactive format, where users learn by experiencing. The goal was to spark curiosity and explain high-level physics in a way that feels intuitive, engaging and accessible. Through extensive research – drawing from books, papers, articles, and videos – I developed the concept, wrote the script (with the help of ChatGPT), created a visual storyboard, drew the visual components in Procreate and built a clickable prototype in Figma.

What I learned

I had to scrap certain things, such as this visual concept of a person falling into a black hole in first-person-view

One of my key takeaways was learning to match ambition with reality. Since we had only four days to complete the infographic, one of which was dedicated to theory, I had to make strategic decisions about what to keep and what to simplify.

I also focused on designing the layout vertically, which visually supports the concept of falling into a black hole. This simple structural decision helped reinforce the theme of «falling» in a subtle but powerful way.

I also learned how to prioritize storytelling, clarity, and user experience over «feature overload», especially when time is short. And that ChatGPT is still bad with creating visual concepts :)