Did you start with the title? Why? Why not?
For this activity, I felt it was necessary to outline the category first and then the book’s title so it was clear to my colleagues viewing my emojis. My hope is if a person viewing my emoji story can recognize the title, the rest will be easy to follow! Initially, I used https://emojikeyboard.io; however, I could not search for emojis, and it did not copy and paste correctly onto my document. Instead, I explored https://emojipedia.org and, using the website’s search tool, I selected the best-suited emojis to accurately convey my story title.
Did you choose the work based on how easy would it be to visualize?
Working on this task made me think of the YouTube video that went viral in 2015/2016, “Frozen as Told by Emoji”. Although the video is substantially more complex than the simplistic emoji story I created, it could be used as inspiration for how emojis and minimal wording could accurately and interactively retell an entire movie in a matter of minutes. Bolter (2001) suggests that images have the ability to bypass written work altogether. I continued to view the different Disney Emoji stories on YouTube and felt Bolter’s statement to be accurate. Emojis can rewrite messages, jokes or implied comments without texting a single word. I use emojis regularly when texting, but I’m curious if the current generation uses emojis as regularly as mine, or do they use a different form of expression?
I have attached the Frozen as Told by Emoji YouTube video for those interested.
Did you rely more on syllables, words, ideas or a combination of all of them?
I primarily focused on individual words rather than trying to blend words; thankfully, my book choice was simplistic enough that most of the emojis were present to embed into my story. As Bolter (2001) suggests, emojis/visual images provide viewers with a visual experience that allows for an appropriate realization. Therefore, for my emoji story to be accurate, I went page by page and selected the most important words/theme of the page and chose the emojis accordingly. After reviewing my emoji combination and running it by my husband for a quick accuracy check, I felt pleased with the result. I’d also like to note this is one of my daughter’s favourite stories!
References
Chapter 4. Bolter, J. D. (2001). Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print (2nd ed.). Mahwah, N.J: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. doi:10.4324/9781410600110