Examples
Semi-Immersive
This is an example of a very video-rich story about a situation in nature. It is extremely compelling through the use of imagery and constant movement. It also integrates 360º images to take you further into the presence of the scene.
Animated Graphic Novel
This is an example of an animated graphic novel based on the short story, 'The Boat' by Nam Le. It integrates hand constructed paintings, sequential images, text, movement, sound and narrative. See other amazing interactive works from SBS here.
Augmented Reality
Digital layers presented on top of the real world and viewed through a mobile device can be quite compelling but in a more place-based manner to draw more connections between the real and digital world. Stories can be created collaboratively.
Virtual Reality
Virtual Reality is storytelling in a fully immersive space. It requires additional technology. This example is from an app developed by the New York Times for the Google Cardboard goggles, available for $15 for use with a regular smartphone.
Image-rich Memoir
This story presented on a simple web page is rich in images and is about one woman's personal solo journey across the Himalayas to raise money for Nepali girls. The images inspire empathy for the experiences she went through and tells the story of her own transformation.
Digital Novella
This story blends video, audio, and text into a single, interactive narrative. Available in the iTunes Store as an app.
Blended Media Stories
The Center for Digital Storytelling, now "The Story Center," developed its own genre of digital storytelling that features a single narrator telling a nonfiction story in a voiceover of image and video.
Hypertext Stories
Hypertext stories are a lot like the classic "choose your own adventure" form of storytelling. There are multiple paths through a story, and hypertext lets you explore the many paths.
Here, the path through the story is linked from an image.
Interactive Data Stories
The International Film Board of Canada - https://www.nfb.ca/ - many interactive and interesting stories here, such as Bear 71 - http://bear71.nfb.ca/#/bear71. This type of story lets the viewer explore randomly to form an overall impression of the experience. Posted here is a trailer for this story experience but you should really go explore it for yourself.
Individualized Interaction
Sometimes stories integrate information from the viewer. This happens when we take an online personality quiz to find out more about our own story and how it might relate to others around us. In this example, we explore Reebok's marketing campaign 'Be more human'. Of course, ultimately, they are telling the story of their footwear in hopes you will purchase but also, within this framework, you can be inspired by stories they provide, find out how many days you have left to live (based on average life expectancy and then tell how you will honor your body during your remaining days, learn about the cognitive benefits of exercise, and find out what your 'human score' is in terms of how motivated you are in the categories of things that make us human.
Collected Stories
Stories that are collected from many people surrounding an event can be a very powerful way to talk about something difficult or painful. With so many storytellers with personal perspectives, the effect is like facets from every direction, each adding a small part to the shape of the whole.
Place-Based Story
One method for giving the reader a sense of place surrounding an associated story is to integrate maps or use a storytelling platform, such as ESRI Story Maps. The viewer is able to zoom in and pan around the map to learn more.
Sound Story
The digital story example to the right is composed of sounds without words, it is a different way to tell a story beyond visual information where the listener makes the story and the pictures happen in the imagination.
Story as Timeline
Tell the progression of a story through time via a timeline with rich media, links, maps, and your text.
Collaborative Story
This project, "7x7", offers to pair writers and visual artists to create an exquisite corpse-style story, which is a form of improv short-form storytelling with words and images where one person starts the story and passes it around to others to continue, alternating images and text. In this case, the interchange happens by distance and is presented online.
Wordless Interactive
This is an example of an interactive word-free moving illustration that tells a simple story. It is titled "Short Trip". It has meditative qualities and you can make small decisions about the progress of the story, how you want it to go, using your keyboard arrows.
Serialized Speculative Fiction
17776: What Football Will Look Like in the Future is a a speculative fiction told through a series of multimedia presentations that incorporates text, animated GIFs, still images, and video.
