Writing Case studies

I have started making a crack at case studies, which I hope to either include in my dissertation itself or in the appendix.  Currently I have covered 4 examples of work and I plan to do 2 more today, which I will post individually.  I looked at previous students' dissertations to see what they had written about and how, and the general take-away from that is that they chose case studies of work on a similar subject to theirs, or of a similar style if the content was different.  I have written about both kinds of examples, looking particularly at designs where the mix of layout and illustration are highly effective or beautifully done.

As I began to write the first one, which was a bit all over the place, I realised it would be easier if I had a fixed set of questions to ask myself when looking at each piece, so I would find consistent elements to talk about.  With that in mind, I came up with the following list of questions:

• About the piece(s) 
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• In what way does the illustration style help to communicate the information?
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• In what ways do the text and the illustrations work together?
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• How are colour and shape used to highlight the information?
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• Which elements help understanding of the subjects?  Which elements hinder it?
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• What can I apply to my own work from the practices shown here?

I have had no feedback yet from Simone on this, so it is possible that some questions will be added/removed/changed.