UIUX | INTERACTIVE DESIGNER | TECHNOLOGIST
KAVADI
LITTLE RED COMMA | NAC x ESPLANADE CULTURAL INITIATIVE
Interactive Storytelling Website
Kavadi (2020)
Little Red Comma
Tusitala Books x NAC x Esplanade
Visit site here.
Credits:
Presented by Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay, produced by Tusitala and commissioned by National Arts Council.
Translated by Yamuna Murthi Raju
Originally published by Epigram Books
Music production by Artwave Studio
Music composition and performance by Raghavendran Rajasekaran
Illustrations by Sophia Tan
"Kavadi" is one of the 3 interactive storytelling websites commissioned to Tusitala Books as part of Literary Arts efforts in Singapore. The interactive experience is a translated short story about a sickly grandmother who wants to carry a kavadi for Thaipusam, based on the story written by local writer Latha, an award-winning author of two collections of poetry in Tamil and a short story collection.
For this project, I was the front-end web developer who also collaborated with the rest of the team for concept design and UI/UX design decisions. Through several discussions on how to effectively yet simply design an interface such that one would recognise it as tamil in nature, we decided to use traditional indian colours such as saffron and maroon as the colour palette for this piece.
Kavadi Colour Palette (Reference)
For the interaction, we decided to use a click-to-progress flow because it will further emphasize the intimacy and pace of two people communicating in the story. The conversation will only carry on once the reader has digested the full context of the conversation, and ready to give the next reply. As this is a work without audio, we also made use of the typewriter effect (with perfectly-timed pacing) to highlight the emotions of the people in the conversation- such as hesitancy, urgency, confusion, and sadness. For example, a statement made with sadness in mind would be slower due to having a heavy heart, a statement made with hesitancy will have more frequent pauses (as though unsure how to reply) before the statement has been completed, and urgent statements will appear fast and sharp.
Aaaand Voila! Here is a complete walkthrough on how the interactive experience is like: