19 November 2013

Visual Storytelling

In Chapter 5 of my book, Interface Design for Learning, I look at the art of communicating visually and allude to the glorious cartoon - an art form that can convey worlds of meaning and emotion in the simplest of lines.  I have recently come across a number of web tools for creating visual narratives that I wanted to share - all of which can be used for free (some completely, some up to a point).

  • Pixton - Allows you to create comics and includes impressive controls for detailed character and limb positioning. I came across this when a colleague, Dewa Wardak, cleverly used it to illustrate her research.
  • PowToon - Allows you to create cartoons. I saw it used to great effect to illustrate a software product created for a student project.
  • GoAnimate - Allows you to create cartoons and targets the corporate market.
  • Scratch - Allows kids of all ages to create their own interactive animations and computer programs.
  • Toontastic - An excellent app that allows younger children to get their hands into narrative structure and create their own animated stories from an iPad.
With all these tools available, what's stopping you from making your story?
Know of any others? Do share!