The Window Kids - Telling cultural stories through playful interactions.

The Window Kids is an educational website that hosts multiple cultural stories. Each story is interactive and follows the real life experiences of members of the community.

Overview

This project was self-directed and formed part of my studio capstone for my Bachelor of Design at UNSW. My focus was to empower students to take pride in Australia’s cultural diversity from a young age.

The Window Kids is accessible to all children with internet access or through their school network. The website aims to grow into a diverse and sustainable community of students, teachers, parents, and creatives who can share their unique stories and have them transformed into interactive experiences - bringing us one step closer to a more inclusive and open-minded society for future generations.

MY ROLE:

Creative Director & Illustrator

Storytelling, ideation, market research, illustration, voice acting, interface design, education design and pitching.

August 2021

“8 in 10 Asian Australian’s have experienced discrimination during the Covid-19 Pandemic”

(Lai, 2021)

Background

While I was in a bathroom stall, I noticed a COVID-19 safety poster pasted on the back of the door. However, someone had graffitied to the list, instructing us to wash our hands when “being near Chinese or dirty Indians.”

Hate speech like this often goes unnoticed, but as a designer, it was a stark reminder of the misdirected education and poor representation of ethnic minorities in Australia. It sparked my desire to create an educational solution to address rising xenophobia during uncertain times.

I chose to focus on the lack of cultural education and appreciation in children’s books and media—an accessible and gentle medium that allows young people to learn without invasive approaches. Prejudice is learned, and children begin to distinguish right from wrong as early as two years old (APS, 2012)

Investigation

  • 1. Holistic understanding of Diversity in Childrens Books.

    In 2018, less than 25% of books represented character from diverse cultural backgrounds.

  • 2. Research of successful, culturally diverse books.

    I drew inspiration from successful childrens books around cultural diversity including ‘Sulwe’ - by Lupita Nyongo.

  • 3. Understanding Story Writing for Children.

    Studying important storytelling structures such as the narrative arc – used in almost every narrative. (Image by The Framework Bank)

    The story Arc

Why The ‘Window’ Kids?

Focusing on shifting our mindset from being ‘saviours’ of minority communities to being allies and equals. This can only be achieved through showcasing the power and agency of culturally diverse individuals to open new ‘windows’, rather than being limited to only one ‘mirrored’ perspective of our own culture. Hence, the window kids.

Goals for composing my first story.

The story is based on my own personal experience of bonding with my mother and my culture through cooking Pakistani food together.

1. Exploring the imagination of a child through cooking.

The simple storyline of cooking allowed room for creativity in unique ways. For example, the main character feels like there are ‘fireworks exploding in her mouth’ when she eats her mum’s spices.

2. Showcasing a cultural experience that is universal for children of migrants.

I wrote a story that was a universal experience for many children of migrants. Expressing love through acts of service, especially cooking, is a common bonding experience for many people.

Creating “Anaya Loves to Cook”

1. Written Story: The story went through multiple iterations as I aimed to portray Pakistani culture in a positive light. I chose a home setting to keep it personal and heartwarming, drawing from my own experience of bonding with my mother and culture through cooking traditional Pakistani food.

2. Character Development: The protagonist, Anaya, was inspired by my childhood appearance, while her mother was based on a stylised version of my own mum.

3. Storyboarding: I wanted the narrative to flow like a puzzle—cohesive and continuous. Since the story was designed for vertical scrolling, the visuals needed to be seamless from top to bottom.

Production

The production phase involved sketching, painting, animation and sound recording. I composed the entire project on Procreate with compilation of all the scenes and audio on Adobe Premiere Pro. I also developed the desktop screens for The Window Kids website.

Illustration

I created the imagery using my imagination, thinking…”If I put myself back into my shoes when I was a child, how would I imagine these scenario’s?” This helped me direct the bright colour, lighting and composition of scenes.

Interactivity

The interactive nature of these stories involved scenes with 2D animation. I illustrated these frame-by-frame on Procreate’s animation tool. Some scenes needed to be clickable as well, therefore I added pop-up windows to show unique cultural facts as users click on objects in the story.

Vertical Storytelling

To progress through the story, users scroll vertically. This means that the story needs to be illustrated to join scenes together seamlessly.

Sustainable Storytelling

The Window Kids website hosts a platform to access all the stories and has a function for children to submit their own stories so that volunteer illustrators and story writers can bring them to life on the website.

Video Walkthrough

‘Anaya Cooks with Mum’ is a visual story, representing one of many stories that will be hosted on The Window Kids - an educational website empowering children to learn and appreciate Australia’s cultural diversity.

Website Design

The Window Kids can be accessed on the internet and is designed for desktop or tablet screens as children have supervised access to these technologies. The interface design is playful to appeal to children whilst being easy to navigate. An important feature of the website is that children can submit their own stories to get them illustrated and added to The Window Kids.