Storybook Favorites

In browsing the storybooks provided by students of previous semesters, I was excited by the level of commitment to craft; many of these entries showed an eager desire to, not modernize, but re-skin the stories in a more palpable and understandable way. I went through the list, choosing stories almost at random, factoring in posed content. Through this, I've found a few of my favorite.

First, I read and thoroughly enjoyed this project and its level of intimacy in breaking down the primary characters involved in the Battle for Lanka. Its format allowed the reader to truly understand the motivations of those involved, while still layering their intricacies in such a way as to show progression of thought. These characters come across as supremely self-aware, with a great sense of their purpose and fate.

Second, the character-study project of three female primary characters was particularly interesting, as oftentimes female characters in western literature, even when the protagonists, are somewhat one dimensional. This project did an excellent job exploring depth and versatility in each of the characters described, affording the reader, once again, the chance to spend time with each character and better understand motivation and complexity. Each of the described characters breaks from a typical western archetype in numerous ways, but each has her own distinct break.

Third, the study of the prominence and weight of food in these epics was peculiar, as it took what were seemingly insignificant exchanges or entries, and established them as watershed moments in each context. Food seems to be mentioned at critical moments, not as a break from the moment, but rather capitalizing the moment in a way not commonly seen in western writings. The gravity given to food, and the description of such, is an interesting addition and I felt this project did an excellent job expanding on said gravity.

Each of these projects had excellent design, both in terms of structure of writing and the layout of their blog posts. I thoroughly enjoyed my time spent in both of these blogs and aim to pull from them in terms of image placement and color palette. Previously, as seen in the current state of my blog, I was a firm believer in minimalism; however, these entries have shown me that carefully cultivated themes and a cohesive page go a lot further than a standard entry.

Photo Usage:
Battle at Lanka, Ramayana, Udaipur - Sahibdin