What if you saw an animated story with no narration on a Web site written in a language you don’t comprehend? Somewhere on the Web, I came across high praise for the storytelling in an animation on the Swedish IKEA Web site. (Click on the words “Da borjar vi!”). It … Continue reading
Category Archives: Digital/Multimedia Storytelling
UK Storytelling Tool, Bloombla, Combines Social-Media Features
Bloombla (I personally find that hard to say) is a free storytelling tool that helps folks collect, manage, and share life experiences. Bloombla offers a status-update/tweet-like feature, a box that beings with “I’ve …” The user fills in the rest of the “Bloom” with anything from the trivial to the … Continue reading
From 6-Word Stories to 5-Frame Stories
I’ve written a number of times about 6-word memoirs/stories, particularly from SMITH magazine. A cousin of the 6-word story has emerged, and a new Ning group is dedicated to the activity, as is a Flickr group, Tell a Story in 5 Frames. Five-frame storytelling seems to be primarily for use … Continue reading
Storytelling to Explain Complex Concepts
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the value of visual storytelling for explaining complex concepts. What could be more complex and incomprehensible than our current economic crisis? Jonathan Jarvis uses story to explain in a video, “Crisis of Credit Visualized.” Jarvis completed the project as part of his thesis … Continue reading
Story Fragmentation: Does it Inhibit Storytelling or Merely Change It?
In his Digital Storytelling Cookbook, Joe Lambert talks about today’s “story fragments:” …we are bombarded with millions of indigestible, literally unmemorable, story fragments every time we pick up a phone, bump into a friend, watch TV, listen to the radio, read a book or a newspaper, or browse the Web. … Continue reading
Personal Mythology in the Stars: Jonathan Harris’ Universe
I’ve highlighted Jonathan Harris’ technologically mind-blowing storytelling projects and platforms in this space before. Just learned of one I hadn’t checked out before, Universe. Here, you type in a word or phrase and see it depicted using the “metaphor of an interactive night sky.” Your word or phrase is depicted … Continue reading
The Story of a Year Told with One Photo a Day
Flickr has a cool group project in which group members each day take a self portrait, tag it with “365days,” and submit it. Below a small selection from a member with the screen name “everythingsjustjake.” I love this idea. What a fantastic way to tell the story of a year … Continue reading
My Big, Fat Visual Storytelling Synthesis
Periodically, I like to gather together interesting examples of visual storytelling I’ve come across and try to find connections among them — or just examine some of the fascinating ways artists are telling visual stories. Philip Bishop, art critic for the Orlando Sentinel, notes that narrative painting is out of … Continue reading
If You Build It, Will They Record Their Stories?
Eric Winick has a dilemma. He wants to help people tell their stories orally through his company, Yarn Audioworks. But he’s having difficulty persuading folks to come forward to record their narratives. “I’m just looking for the best incident-based 10-15 minute stories I can find,” he says. Winick, a full-time … Continue reading
Last Newspaper to Publish April 2043: Story-Based Ideas to Save Newspapering
The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging has extrapolated information from University of North Carolina journalism-school professor Phil Meyer to determine that the very last newspaper will land on doorsteps in April 2043. I’ve said in a past entry that I’m OK with the inevitable death of newspapers as long … Continue reading