Our Relationship with the Written Word

Written word is one of the earliest forms of phenomenological design, a means to affect the presence of another person within the mind of the reader. It's a powerful and emotional phenomenon when executed by a skilled author, weaving engaging narratives and endearing, rich characters all from the simple context of a common written language.

Techniques in written word have been evolving since the advent of written language and technologies for the distribution of written word have matured over the ages to reach the mass market, but written word has always maintained a single fundamental feature: that the reader's copy of the material is static, non-interactive despite its faculty for delivering emotional depth. Even a written letter has a static nature, despite its purpose in demanding a response.

The Pokeymans Project: a Transmedia Experiment

Here's an excerpt from The Pokeymans Project, a prolific little tumblr where the author and illustrator, Noelle Stevenson, (whose webcomic NIMONA other tumblr are also awesome) takes a submitted description of a real, licensed Pokemon character and attempts to render the character with no other input.