Class Assignment 3: 'Interesting' & 'Capture'

Representations of the words, done with Edeline.



Interesting: When something interests you, you look closely. So we chose a magnifying glass.



Capture: A cage for physical capture. A camera to capure the moment.

A Fairytale Ending: The End

Some images of the pages, before and after text was added.

A Fairytale Ending: Part 3

Images were drawn using a Wacom tablet and Flash. It was later coloured in using Corel Painter.

A Fairytale Ending: Part 2

Planned out the page layouts of where graphical elements would lie and how text would wrap around it. We wanted each page to look different to keep the stimulus of our child readers alert, to maintain their attention and keep them interested. The consistency of text size and kinds of images was to keep them reading through but the adjusted text helped to draw them into a new exciting page each time.

A Fairytale Ending: Part 1

Frederique, Sri & I got together and came up with several stories.

1) Brainstorming & story generation

This phase was aimed at coming up with ideas about a storyline suitable for the target group (6-9 year olds) and considering different design options. We wanted the following elements to be present in our story:

- A little boy
- A moral
- An adventure
- Storyline not too childish
- Drawings on all pages
- Text organized in different ways: around pictures, next to pictures, under pictures etc.

We came up with several ideas:
a) A boy in an upside down world
b) Following the life of a coin
c) Time machines


We left those and developed two storylines to present in class. These are:

(Untitled)
A little boy has a fight with his parents. Upset, he decides to sneak into his father’s chemistry laboratory where he is not allowed to go and has never been in. He drinks a chemical potion. He becomes invisible, and realises that he can do anything he wants. He visits the people he does not like, and plays tricks on them by changing little things in their house (like in the film Amélie). He ties shoelaces together, switches toothpaste for something else, glues people to their seats, moves things about. Then, he goes to house of the school’s biggest bully. Obviously he doesn’t favour this boy. While planning to execute a trick on him, the little boy realises that the school bully is actually bullied at home by his father. The bully is sad all the time too. The little boy sees things in a new light and feels guilty. He decides to undo all the nasty things he has done. However, he is becoming visible again, so in order to not be seen he has to race against the clock. He is back in bed just in time, and pretends to be asleep as his mother comes in to wake him up.

Jason and the World of Plastic Trees (original idea)
A little boy, who is always rude to plants and trees (kicks them, plucks the leaves) one day gets sucked into a tree (or other secret passage) and ends up in a world full of plastic trees. These trees are sad and mean and rude to him. In this world, there is one last real tree, with leaves, a bark and a natural smell. People have to pay to see this last tree (inspired by the song Big Yellow Taxi from the Counting Crows). Saddenned by the mean words of the tress and feeling in despair, Jason sits at the foot of a tree. There he sees an old man stroking a leaf and mumbling something that catches Jason’s interest. Jason talks to this wise old man who then tells him about how the world used to be when there were still living trees and how sad people are these days. He tells Jason why trees are important and how to take care of them. Then Jason goes back to the other world and makes a change for the better. He is now gentle with nature, takes care of the trees around his home and teaches other people about it as well.

We considered the option of making the old man the future version of Jason (he meets his older self), but reckoned that this would be a bit too complicated for 6-9 year olds.




These two ideas we proposed to our tutorial group, who liked Jason and the World of Plastic Trees best. In this tutorial session we also decided to leave out the ‘rudeness to plants’, as not many children are particularly rude to plants and trees, and including it in the story could hinder the process of identification/empathy.


1b) The Story : Outline
- Introduction of Jason
- Walk through the forest
- Sucked into the tree
- Description of Plastic Tree world
- Talking trees
- Introduction of old man
- Old man’s story - moral
- Back in real world
- Conclusion


Once upon a time, there was a boy called Jason. Jason was a boy like every other boy: brown eyes, black hair, the newest sports shoes and a red baseball cap. Jason lived with his parents in a little house near a big forest, in which he often went for a walk and never got lost. The forest was called the Never Ending Forest, because it was so large. Jason knew the paths by heart, because he remembered all the small things along the way: the mushrooms that formed a circle, the little stream rushing by, the tree in which the nightingale hid.

One misty Tuesday, when Jason got home from school, he went for a walk in the forest. He had put on a woollen scarf and his blue coat, and stuck his hands in his pocket to stay warm. He walked fast, he knew his way despite the thick mist that surrounded him.

Suddenly he stopped; something strange had caught his eye. The large, old oak tree, which he called the Nightingale-tree, somehow seemed to look different. On the thick, wrinkled bark, there was a crack that had never been there before. Jason walked up to the tree to look closer: there were more cracks, and together they formed a door. Then, when he touched the bark, the door flew open and Jason was lifted off his feet and sucked into the tree. A flashing green light surrounded him, and after what seemed to be only a fraction of a second, he was smashed to the ground.

Jason opened his eyes and shook his head: he felt dizzy. When he looked around he couldn’t believe his eyes. He was still in the Never Ending Forest, but all the trees that used to be so beautiful, green and alive were now made of plastic. They looked like toys, but about a hundred times bigger than the ones Jason played with at home.

Not knowing where he was, he got to his feet and began to walk. Every single tree had turned plastic and Jason carefully touched a young pine tree. “Ouch!” he screamed, when the hard plastic leaves hurt his fingers. He stuck his nose closer to the tree, and was shocked to smell plastic instead of the wonderful smell that always reminded him of Christmas.

Jason was scared and walked away. When he passed a big, shiny tree, he suddenly heard a low laughter. He looked over his shoulder to see if there was anybody around, but the path was deserted. “Stupid humans” the low voice murmured, “see what you have done”. Jason started running, but more and more voices started to speak to him. Some low, others high, some old, some young, but all in the same sad and angry tone. “Look what has become of us”, “How do you like us now, huh?”.

The little boy looked around and around, his red cheeks turned pale. He seemed to be all alone; it were the trees that were talking to him! He ran and ran until – boom! – he hit something. Jason first screamed, and then felt ultimately relieved when the thing he had bumped into turned out to be an old man. Another human being! Made from flesh and blood, not plastic. The old man had a long, white beard and friendly eyes as blue as the sky. He smiled generously at Jason. “Come boy, let me show you something”. He led him to plastic hut surrounded by tall, plastic trees. Pink, plastic flowers surrounded the entrance. Next to it was a black box. “You’re lucky boy, people normally have to pay to enter, but I’ll show you around for free”.

Together they climbed into the hut. It was nicely warm inside, but dark – Jason could hardly see where he had ended up. A bright light in the distance caught his eye, and the old man guided him towards it. “This is the last one, Jason”, he said in a sad voice. In the light, Jason saw a real, living tree. Its green leaves rustled in the wind and he could smell the freshness of the wood. The man started his story: “A long time ago, all trees looked and smelled like this one. The earth was green and fertile, and trees and plants provided oxygen and natural beauty for humans and animals. But mankind was careless and selfish, and killed all trees to make space for high buildings and modern cities. They used the wood to make newspapers, comics and a thousand other things.” Jason listened silently. “Now all trees are plastic, oxygen comes from another planet and books don’t exist anymore. This tree is the very last one, and it’s dying. Soon, living plants and trees will be extinct.” The little boy’s eyes grew big. “I’m an old man Jason, you are still young. Please go back and tell the people to take care of the trees”.
The wrinkled hand touched his red baseball cap, and Jason got spiralled back through the green light, into the real world. He was back again in the Never Ending Forest, full of living trees. He smiled and marched straight to the biggest newspaper’s headquarters, to tell his story to the rest of the world. Do you think they believed him? Let me tell you: it was on the front page the next morning.

Fairytale trials

Testing out leaf shapes and how to draw a metallic tree. We decided in the end to remove metallic trees altogether from the story (required editing the story and the layout) to be consistent with the title. It also didn't seem to hinder the story flow.


First draft of how the plastic trees would look. Wanted the bends and folds to form a face. We chose plastic bottles (also recommended by the class) to be the tree bark because it was the most obvious and familiar form of plastic to kids. The greyish tones were used to represent translucence.