"Sods Law" Written and Illustrated by Harry Markwick.

My story is going to be about a man who has to get up and go to work, but Sods Law keeps getting in the way, and worse and worse things keep happening to him. He can't find his tie, it started raining when hes walking, he forgets his money so he cant buy a coffee, he misses the bus. That sort of thing. I'm going to go ahead and have a go at writing this all out, and then story boarding some rough illustrations to go a long with the words.

Children's books.

So ive looked at some Kids books, and most of the ones that I grew up with, and a lot of the newer ones start with something good, and then conflict happens, and then at the end everything is fine. I'm going to use this format for my own book. Some good examples are "Peace At Last". A story where the Bear family are all sleepy, so they decide to go to bed, but Mr Bear cannot sleep! So he goes around the house trying to find somewhere he can get some peace to go to sleep, but things keep getting in the way from him getting a nights sleep, like his wife snoring, the taps dripping, the sun coming up. It ends with him getting Peace at last in his own bed when everyone else is asleep. Then the alarm goes off, adding a bit more humour at the end.

Another book I've looked at is "I'm Not Cute". The trend I'm seeing here, is the main character getting more and more frustrated, with a happy ending.

U-TURN! Lets start from the top.

OKAY! So apparently I cannot use Judith Kerrs illustrations for "The Tiger Who Came To Tea" because of plagiarism.. SO! I've decided to write my own kids book, will illustrations by me, written by me, and an iPad friendly online version for interactivity. It's going to be hard work to pull this round with in the time, but I have a pretty good idea of what my story is going to be.

Technical Hic-up

So the mac that I was using has decided to die, so that has left me completely in the lurch for creating this iBook. SO.. Instead I'm going to have to make an interactive story website. This shouldn't be too bad, but It is a lot more work, and 100% more coding than I was looking forward to. BUT I digress..

First animation test for opening video.

I want to make it a bit snazzier, so I'm going to have to play around with effects and audio I think!

Snazzed up concept.

Concept logo/App icon

First concept mock up.

Sketched up design concept.

Childrens Apps.

If im going to market to parents and children, I'll have to have a look at some apps aimed at children, then have a look and general app design as a whole. Here are some children apps that I have found.

Art My Kid Made

By Gramercy Consultants

A colourful app, taking themes from real world (art on the fridge) This app allows you to share your kids drawings with other parents. simple yet bright and colourful.

Maily: Your Kids' First Email

By Goodnews.is

A much more simple interface is used here. This is an app to give your children their first Email experience, and have it be controlled by you. Colourful buttons, and a simple interface.

Farm 123 ~ StoryToys Jr

By StoryToys Entertainment Limited

 This is a story app for children. It has a lot of bright, loud colours, and very cartoonish drawings. Things are very obvious. 

Cinderella by Nosy Crow

By Nosy Crow

This one has a much more individual look at the interface and art style. Where a lot of apps have stuck with the look of the OS, this one has made its self its own look, resembling actual story books.

Concept social aspect and the apps ability.

I won't be able to make a social side to my app, but I will be able to make a working iBooks application for the iPad. The things I want in the social side will be...

Sharing - The ability to share your kids favourite books to other users

Comment - To be able to leave comments on books, like reviews.

I think ill give the stories a few options too. You can have a voice over, or no voice over for kids who can't hear very well, or for deaf/blind children.

I'll start sketching up some logos and names for the app to get the branding on the way..!

Current interactive kids books.

I found some rather nasty looking ones from a council website here. These are (well they look like) stories written for the purpose of making them interactive.

http://resources.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/interactive/onlinestory.htm

There also seems to be a huge amount of them for digital download on Amazon

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Interactive-Story-Books-Software/b?ie=UTF8&node=463966

I think im going to focus more on the apps interactivity more than the stories interactivity. We'll see how it all pans out though.

Brain Fart.

OKAY! So I've had an idea which I'm going to do some more research into. An application for the iPad that features a selection of animated children's books. I can do this by making a single Book using iBooks author, but creating my own navigation system within it, with multiple books. I'd love to have a social aspect to the App, like a social network that lets parents rate books, comment on books, and suggest books to other parents depending on how much their kids liked it. The name would be something bedtime related as it is for childrens bedtime stories. I'll do some research into whats out in the market at the moment, then maybe look into animated childrens stories and books.

Research: iBooks Author.

When talking about interactive story telling, you can't really forget to talk about Apples new iBooks Author. I was lucky enough to try it out last year before general release. It allows you to make books for iBooks app on iPad and iPhone. Its a very simple program, that can be used to make very simple text or story books that have the built in code for swiping to the next page. Saying that though, you can use it to make it infinetly more interactive by adding your own menu using link work arounds and such.

Research: Interactive Flash Animations

Okay, so ive been looking into some of the ways people have made flash interactive, and I found this cute little thing: http://www.tongsville.com/city/index.html

Flash has also been used for interactive menus, like in Homestarrunner.com. I feel like flash could be a very interesting way of making something interactive. Now all I need to do is add the social element.

Research: Crowd sourced music video.

I found this really awesome crowd source made music video. It records your mouse movements, and adds it to everyone else's mouse movements, creating a really nice looking effect. I urge you to do it your self, its really cool.

It's Here!

Research: Video games.

When talking about interactivity within digital media, you can't really forget to talk about video games. The ultimate in narrative interaction. Since the idea of using Cathode ray tubes to simulate a simple tennis game in Tennis for two back in the 50's, video games have made huge strides in how a user can interact with different aspects of the virtual world that has been presented. This is thanks to the technology improving, but also because the way humans socialize and interact with each other. With the invention of the internet came a brand new way of communicating with each other, a much easier way of getting to know people. This invention has made the world a much smaller place, allowing us to talk to anyone from all over the world with the click of a mouse. The first game that was able to network play with another computer was Space war!. It was just a small space fighting game, but it showed how the digital interactive game could be a communal thing, bringing people together. Fast forward to the future, and I can go home, turn on my Playstation 3 and connect with millions of people all over the world to play Grand Theft Auto at the same time, on the same map, and even talk and progress through the game with them.

Video games are a great example of how something digital can be bother interactive and social. This is also the same for social media websites like Facebook, and even user generated content sites like Newgrounds or Youtube.

Research: Interactive Video.

A cool part of interactive design is the use of YouTube to make interactive stories with different outcomes. This is done simply by having links at the end of the video that go to other videos, depending on the choice of link. A good example of this is Luigi's mansion: An Interactive Adventure Game by DrCoolSex.

Another, and possibly better example is the recent video released by Bob Dylan, which has you flipping through channels, while all the actors of the TV shows are mouthing "Like a Rolling Stone". I love this so much, and I would love to do something along these lines.

http://video.bobdylan.com/desktop.html

Brief Two: Design for interactivity

Another brief! This time its for Design for Interactivity:

From reading the brief I got that I have to design and develop an interactive project that explores and plays with concepts of human and machine relations. It can be anything! I don't have an idea straight of the bat for this one, so i'm going to have to bite to bullet and do some real research..

Adverts/explanations.

Click here to see how it works on the web.