As graphic designers we are in the unique position to create, influence, interpret and preserve culture. The visual materials we produce, both printed and electronic are records of our times. The western-based cultural tradition of writing dates back thousands of years. This history, stored on paper, tablets or scrolls is, for the most part, safe and stored in museums and archives.

Before the written tradition, however, was the oral tradition — the practice of spreading a people’s history and ideals through the spoken word, many times in the form of fables. This project seeks to modernize and archive the African oral storytelling tradition using computer-based motion graphics and interactivity. Using MacroMedia Flash MX (an authoring and animation software) the project merges the spoken word with interactive and kinetic graphics, music and sound…

So began the paper for the final project in my master’s program at Kent State University. Within the project, I partially fulfilled an ambition of mine to create a children’s book. inspired by the African folktales my mother read me as a youth and intrigued by possibilities of digital animation I created a prototype of a modern digital folktale.

The Majestic Fish is a Flash animation in 8 parts, each about 1 minute long. I completed 4 of the 8 chapters for the purposes of creating the prototype. The completed chapters are housed in a user interface that contains the text of the story, a map of the area the story came from and an original soundtrack. I’m also including the original project paper which you can down load to get more insight as to how this project went together.

Because the original project was designed for distribution on CD, The files were a bit large for online streaming. I stripped the music track from one chapter to make it smaller. If you have a cable or DSL connection view the Hi-res versions, the music is a big part of the presentation. I plan to have the complete story online eventually. By the way, the “replay” buttons should work. but not the “forward” buttons. I hope you enjoy it.

Note: these files have audio so be prepared to adjust your volume

chapter 6
chapter 6 Hi rez
chapter 2 Hi rez

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