Two stories everyone should study

This is the weekend edition of TheMarioBlog and will be updated as needed. The next blog post is Monday, January 27.

I am taking a look at these two stories after my friend and colleague, the legendary magazine designer and creative director , Bob Newman, called them to my attention in an email. Bob wrote:

“I was judging at the National Magazine Awards last week and everyone was buzzing about two online stories that you might like….Both are next generation storytelling.”

Indeed, I like them.

What these stories have in common:

What good mobile stories have in common

Of course, I will show them to those attending the workshop I am conducting this week in Hamburg. I will add them to the required list of stories to see for my Columbia class that starts January 27.

Both have timely, fascinating content. The Vox story is all about the environment, specifically about three super trees that can protect us from climate collapse. . The one from Emergence Magazine deals with California’s indigenous languages, some facing extinction.
Both have created segmentation to facilitate the coverage of long narratives.
Both marry the visuals to the text, seldom deviating into long narratives that are not accompanied by visuals.
Both incorporate a variety of visual assets, from photos to gifs to videos and animated graphics.
Both explore color and typography effectively.

Take a look and you will find dozens of tips of how to approach mobile storytelling effectively. Kudos to the teams of Vox and Emergence Magazines.

Go here:

Vox

https://www.vox.com/a/supertrees

Emergence Magazine

https://emergencemagazine.org/issue/language/

Start the year with The Story

A good read to start the year 2020: The full trilogy of The Story now available–3 books to guide you through a mobile first strategy. Whether you’re a reporter, editor, designer, publisher, corporate communicator, The Story is for you! https://amazon