Some of you may have read my short story True Blue when it came out on Kindle. It’s a tale of persecution and self-discovery set in a world where your future is determined by the color of your eyes. The reader response to the story was so strong and moving that I was able to raise a grant to adapt True Blue into an internet public art project.
Phoebe, Peter, and I challenged ourselves to reimagine what online storytelling could be and built a custom site from the ground up to bring True Blue to life. The result isn’t quite a webcomic or an article or an art installation but a little bit of all of those things and more. We hope it contributes to making the internet a more beautiful, meaningful place.
Experience True Blue right here. It’s a story about being true to yourself even when the world turns against you, standing up instead of standing by, and finding the courage to stop caring what other people think.
To make True Blue, we experimented with new production techniques: blending digital and physical media, developing custom logotypes and micro-animations, cropping images not just to resize them, but to change their content and composition to accommodate different screens, etc. When you read the story many of these endeavors invisibly contribute to making it compelling. To see exactly how we did it, read this detailed companion essay about the creative process behind the project.
It’s hard to believe that the day has finally come to let True Blue out into the wild. We poured ourselves into this project and are incredibly proud of the results. I can’t wait to hear what you think.
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