Experience Design
Operation Ajax
Reinventing the graphic Novel
operationajax.com
Cognito Comics in San Francisco approached us to sound design and score one of the first interactive graphic novels for the iPad. It was 2010 and Apple had yet to ship on the first iPad orders. Cognito was new on the market and had already started production on this ambitious opportunity to create a new medium.
It became clear very early on that once we established that sound was a partner in making the product come alive, no sound was not an option. This meant that the different interactive level of the experience always had to have an audio component. From the book level, to the story telling level, to the interactive features, we needed a sound response for every frame with either musical or ambient loops continually running, making the story worlds.
Built in Unity, the project introduced some interesting challenges
The first challenge:
interaction design for FIRST IN CLASS HARDWARE FOR MOBILE TECHNOLOGY
End users were still fresh to mobile apps, handheld devices, and second screens. We took a leap in imagining how multimedia might merge with a traditional sequential art form that keeps people reading from cover to cover.
The second challenge: WORLD BUILDING
The story took the reader all over the world. The animators and illustrators were responsible for the look and feel of these locations. We had to make them 3d, layered, rich and immersive.
The third challenge:
Seamless page turning
When a book sized screen has the ability to deliver high resolution sound and animation, how does one page end and another begin? This means one thing for animators, but with sound, we might have to jump from one world to the next without pulling the reader out of the story. To experience this you have to see it for yourself.