Alyssa Bishop: The Princess & the Pea

Alyssa’s single page uses several design elements to its advantage: line, color, texture.  However, since this should be a page dedicated to telling a story there are elements that would be essential but are missing or scarce. Unity is the first that comes in mind. The different parts of the page do not seem to belong together – after the first three at least.  The type is floating and not aligned, this creates a sense of disorder. The white space at the bottom is also doesn’t help either visually or functionally as part of a storytelling page.

Zac Brittner: The Greedy Crow

Zac’s The Greedy Crow works. I think it’s a successful storytelling page both visually and content-wise. The illustrations are effective and the page presents a sense of continuity throughout.  Zac has kept things simple: white background and minimal use of color drive the user’s attention to the strong illustrations and the story itself. Overall, a good project that presents unity and balance.

Lauren Brown

No link.

 Rachel Calhoun: Rapunzel

Rapunzel is a well-known story and Rachel uses a great deal of color and texture to convey a fairy tale feel.  She uses negative space to place the type and aligns it vertically. I’m not sure about the typeface choice, I think I would pick something more casual and related to children themes and I would stick with one font. The artwork is beautiful; however there are a few pixelation issues and there are spots where the different elements seem to be of different resolution/quality.

Jacob Cimba: The Deluge

Jacob’s folklore project uses a number of nice animation techniques and gradient backgrounds. While it is visually fairly simple, technically it is probably the most complex among the ones seen so far.  The imagery and animations work well with the content of the story and the page certainly displays unity.  I would try to extend the background gradients to cover the whole page instead of having white space left on both sides. Maybe I would also add more and larger images to enhance the visual impact of the page.

Michael Dawson

No link.

Brian Duncan: Dante’s Inferno

Inferno has almost a book page feel to it. Hierarchy is dominating the whole page and the different stages are separated by background blocks that contain type and imagery. There is a sense of continuity and unity throughout the whole page. Improvement ideas: perhaps use a different typeface, closer to medieval subjects; make illustrations bigger to balance the type, use photography or water texture instead of plain CSS shapes to represent the waterfall.

Mike Florence

No link.

Laura Keefer: Fable

Laura’s fable certainly uses color, texture, negative space for type placement and has unity. However, the 3 parts are probably too similar to one another, the type is too much for the third part of the page, and there is plenty of white empty space on the right side. A couple of ideas: perhaps placing the type into boxes on the side eliminating white space and introducing more visual elements and background detail would help.

Justin Luteran: The Story of the Man Who Did Not Wish to Die.

Dead link.

Ryan Palaschak: The White Hare and the Crocodiles

The White Hare and the Crocodiles is one of the most successful among the single pages seen so far, both artistically and technically. The illustrations are very effective and well-done. A limited color palette and the same illustration technique are used throughout the document giving a sense of unity. Type and imagery are well balanced. The type is placed in boxes exploiting negative space, and the medieval Japanese tale style is conveyed successfully.  The typeface choice is well thought (another idea would be a typeface that resembles Japanese characters) and the content original and convincing.

Liz Phillips: Why Dogs Chase Foxes

Liz’s illustrations are strong and her page is compositionally well-balanced. The type is placed correctly and the color palette effective. Her work has unity and the background lines create a sense of movement and rhythm. A couple of improvement ideas could be: eliminate the white empty space at the bottom and use a more casual typeface that is somehow related to storytelling.

Evan Phillips’s Folklore project

In Evan’s project there is a successful use of color and efficient use of illustrations. There is a sense of rhythm achieved through repetition in the page and the negative space is used efficiently. Improvement ideas could be the use of frames of boxes for placing the type and the extension of the background to cover the white space at the bottom.

Latiyfa Whitehead: The Tale of Orpheus

The tale of Orpheus displays several qualities: consistency in illustration quality, unity, beautiful use of color, and experimentation with jquery animation techniques. The story is narrated efficiently and overall it is a captivating piece of work. On a few occasions maybe the type placement could be better and perhaps a more archaic style typeface would help.

Katie Withrow: How Sun, Moon, and Wind Went Out to Dinner

Katie’s project is solid: there is continuity among the illustrations, effective placement of the type, and a composition that plays with geometric shapes and high contrast. Throughout the whole page unity is achieved through repetition and similarity and the navigation system is original.

Justin Yaras

No link