Remembrance

Learn languages while reading stories from the past

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Concept

Remembrance is a comics project that aims to share bilingual stories to ages 4-25 based on memories from notable multicultural migrants and elders' experiences on placemaking (the act of making a space a home or community), love, family, loss, and perseverance.

Inspired by my love for learning languages, history, and forming familiar connections, I wanted to develop a project that brings different age groups together through visual storytelling. Many of us know a 60+ year old relative that have a story they all love to share or just wants someone who will listen. Additionally, cultures are often taught as one national monolith, when in reality, there are many cultures within one country alone. It isn't a retelling of historical events in these comics, but a more nuanced way to illustrate cultural experiences.

Sharing these stories via picture books or comic books for younger generations to learn bits of history and language through visual representation of people with similar backgrounds can re-imagine how we connect to our histories.

Personas (Target Audiences)

  • 25-35 year old parents wanting to show their 4 year old child stories that represent their cultural background(s), read bilingual text, and make visual connections to cultural understanding.
  • 16 year old searching for people and experiences recollecting how they've come to adapt or accept two different cultural environments
  • 25 year old hoping to find stories from someone who has a similar identity to them, looking to learn from their lived experience navigating loss, heartbreak, or identity crisis.

Why Code?

In an ideal situation, this project would start off by being promoted on google books, audible, etc to gain traction while also building partnerships with local bookbinders, independent bookstores, and cultural nonprofits. In addition to promoting diverse stories, Remembrance aims to empower creative entrepreneurship for independent shops and cultural organizations across the world. By coding the landing page and collection preview, the business will save hundreds from annual website platform hosting.

The landing page requires minimal content management upkeep and updating the collection directory will just require airtable database management.

How it's made Landing page: HTML, CSS, GSAP, Collection Preview: Pory, Airtable

Challenges we ran into

Creating an idea from scratch spontaneously means there's a lot of ideas that suddenly come to mind. I had to do a feasibility check to determine what's possible to develop in a few hours after getting through the basics (brand identity + project ideation).

x Trouble finding the right assets like proper fontfaces to match the design

x Couldnt come up with an idea what the comic would look like or if its a better way to encompass different book genres (zines, childrens picture books, infoposters, etc)

This meant the webpage couldn't be complete, but I also needed to quickly put together a page wireframe. I used the TechPilot Wireframe Kit to get the ground running.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Using Canva templates as a foundation + adjust for the project Wordtune as a substitute for grammarly Getting the landing page designed + coding the webpage

What we learned

How to use pory and airtable to create a visually appealing database that anyone can understand how to navigate

What's next for Remembrance

  • working links
  • Publish the pory app ToT so its viewable
  • Research how to get the rights to translate stories from notable people in history to boost the project (i.e Mehmood Bhatti, Victor Tsoi, Tessanne Amanda Chin, etc)
  • Developing the site to be more adaptive and improve mobile ux
  • Creating a horizontal scrolling animation
  • Better animated transitions
  • Outreach to fundraisers or foundations willing to sit through a seed funding presentation
  • Online membership portal for recurring buyers and people interested in sharing their own stories after reading one of the comics

In the far future partner with senior living centers, hospitals, hospice to develop a short term visitation program. For patients and residents who are alone in these environments looking for company and like to learn about other people. Perhaps kids or teens can share a story about themselves or ask a question and meet?

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