Click here to see the project.

Project Summary

Design

Billie Jean and I’s project is a text-based narrative that utilises digital drawings, sound, and interactive web elements to construct a cohesive (part of a) story.

We based our project upon the works of 1984 by George Orwell, “My boyfriend came back from the war” by Olia Lialina, and “Those We Love Alive” by SlimeDaughter. Using the visual techniques from Lialina’s work, we utilised high contrast images as well as deliberate colour choices to evoke specific feelings such as uncertainty, anxiety, etc. to create an oppressive atmosphere that doesn’t detract away from its utility.

The plot is inspired by 1984, but has more of an emphasis on themes of family, father figures in systems of psycho-political oppression, and technology as a tool for oppression. Our message, very similar to Orwell’s, is a contemporary adaptation for some of the themes present in 1984 as well as a few unique themes of our own.

We utilised the web-interactivity element from SlimeDaughter’s game due to the text-based framework we built the story upon. In the game “Those We Love Alive,” you advance through the story and different choices by clicking on coloured words or phrases within the text; however, we felt that this design was not taken to its fullest extent, and thus added in more colors, more activity with the text, and sounds to accompany clicking on the words in the narrative. These additions bring SlimeDaughter’s idea of hyperlinks within a text based narrative to its next artistic conclusion, where more can be experienced than just more static text.

Process

Billie Jean and I equally split up the work quite effectively, where:

• I marked up the website using HTML and CSS, as well as programming in JS;
• I created the interactive elements through the use of “keywords,” color, creative use of showing text, etc;
• She did all of the illustrations and art present in the project;
• We both collaborated on the narrative elements such as plot, theme, and the actual text of the website;
• We both decided on a single colour palette, UI design, and message of the project.

I believe that no partner necessarily did more work than the other.

What we first tackled was the themes of the project: what we wanted to say by making this project. From there, we decided upon key design decisions to showcase these themes, such as: the oppressive high contrast imagery, the artwork, and the writing style of the text. Indeed, everything stemmed from our mission in making this project. No decision was made without going back and saying “how does this tie into our message? What are we saying by doing this?”

Reflection

We did not finish the actual story of the narrative. If we had more time to work on this project, we would’ve added more text, more choices, and more interesting instances of interactivity with typography, the non-linear nature of hyperlinks, etc.

What I feel we accomplished, however, showcases the potential of the design in what feels like a semi-complete experience. While the story may not be complete, everything up until that point was deliberate in execution and ultimately tied back into the message Billie Jean and I were trying to send.