Shape of Water (Copy) — Aaron Hope's Portfolio

Role

Digital Producer

Skills

Design Production, Digital Storytelling, Front-End Development

Background

Shape of Water is about the historical technique of wooden boat-building created ride in the very Baltimore bay area. We follow the building crew on their daily reconstruction of one of these historic ships, the Ednea. Baltimore magazine used this as an opportunity to bring this story to the digital world with an animated storytelling experience.

Goal

Transform the printed editorial into a multi-media story that elevate the original feature.

Early Exploration

Research

I worked closely with the writer, photographer and print designer of the original story. We created an outline of the story and brainstorming its digital possibilities. I converted our outline into a wireframe that we could start filling in with content. Our photographer provided me with a lot of stunning images and videos of the boat being restored. I wanted to add as much of that imagery into the story as possible.

Design Sprint 1

I started this sprint coding and developing the wireframe. I wanted the visuals to follow the flow of the story. I created more collages to show an array of photos conveying a “day in the life” of a boatbuilder. This helped my confirm visual placements and integrate design elements from the printed version. Once the positioning was perfected I could begin editing and uploading images and video.

Design Sprint 2

Thanks to my earlier work I was able to finalize the digital story. I added small details like the tape to photos and integrated videos from the construction site. This created an immersive experience that the printed version couldn’t provide.

Our story was praised by Baltimore Magazine and its readers for this enhancement on the original story. This design was a finalist in the City & Regional Magazine Awards and won the Folio Award for Digital Storytelling.

Takeaways

Working with the original creators of this design help inspire the storytelling aspect of this design. Pulling all our resources together to create a next-level solution.

Creating a layout that worked with the story from scratch gave us complete control over the layout, mobile-friendliness, and let us create edits quickly.