The Xtend Story App: A Solution for Transmedia Storytelling

The solution

While many of the prior examples serve as impressive cases of how to push a property across multiple titles, few integrate their corresponding “universes.” Furthermore, they fail to lead consumers to products linked to what they are immediately interacting with.

Consumers cannot successfully interact with products they don’t know about. This is the main purpose of advertising: awareness. Making associated titles and products available to an audience takes the footwork away and encourages them to continue with characters they are already familiar with.

Not only does transmedia create more chances for interacting with new products, but it opens the story possibilities as well. By seamlessly flowing from one product to another, the storytellers no longer have to deal with endless exposition and can enter a new story straightaway. By creating a seamless flow, partakers are allowed to interact with and feel more a part of the world they’re “in.”

One of the main issues of telling stories across different media is locating or acquiring them. This is where the Xtend Story app comes in. The Xtend Story app will serve as a depot or way-finding tool for any transmedia story that participates. If the story begins with a major motion picture, that content will push users to the app, which will show them the next part or parts of the story.

Design process

I wanted the logo to be a strong, simple mark with the expectation that it would be predominantly, but not exclusively, used in a digital setting. By ensuring its simplicity and the heavy line weight, the logo is more likely to hold up at the smallest of sizes.

It is important that the logo be memorable for brand recognition. Users will obviously be pushed to the app as much as possible, but when they see the logo, they need to know what it means. If it is already on their phone, they need to remember that it is there and not treat it as wallpaper.

With 90 percent of Americans having cellphones, the media landscape has begun shifting to a mobile-first mindset (Vaynerchuk). Quibi.com, for example, offers shows and movies that are specifically formatted for mobile viewing. Media companies already have most of their brands available online, but scattered across the web. The free Xtend Story app will be the depot for most, if not all of the media associated with any of the participating titles.            

Xtend logo contains an X, forward arrow, play button, a crossroads symbol, and a hidden “EX”.

Color Palette

Warm colors provide a sense of movement and energy, which is the feeling I want to evoke. Red is “spoken” for by too many other media companies, yellow is often too vibrant, and brown lacks the dynamism a brand needs to provide. To be effective, I decided to build the Xtend Story app around the color orange.

As the graphic design publisher Smashing Magazine described the color orange in an extensive article on color theory: “In its muted forms it can be associated with the earth and with autumn. Because of its association with the changing seasons, orange can represent change and movement in general. Orange is also strongly associated with creativity. In designs, orange commands attention without being as overpowering as red. It’s often considered more friendly and inviting, and less in-your-face.”

Typeface

I wanted to use a typeface that had a diverse family, held up at smaller sizes, and had some familiarity mixed with individuality. While a serif typeface would bring a certain amount of credibility, sans-serif typefaces have proven over and over to hold together better in an online setting. Xtend must read as a digital-first initiative that can show up in the print world and not the other way around so as to better push people to the app.

For these reasons, I decided to use Azo Sans.

Xtend Story app Design

Opening & Login

I wanted the app design to be focused and clean to lessen any confusion by the user, especially since the app provides a more unique experience than that of more traditional entertainment apps.

When interacting with a profile page, which users are led to after choosing a property, everything is built to guide the fan to the correct next destination. For example, if they’ve begun halfway through a story, the app will advise them to start with the prior entries to make sure they are entirely up to date before moving on.

Xtend Homescreen & Profile Page

Scan Function

To make the process work to find related content outside of the app, users will be encouraged to use the scan function in the app.  Every piece of print content that is part of the story or universe will have the Xtend logo and a unique code. The logo will act as a QR code, similar to the ones currently being used by Instagram for nametags. When encountering print elements in the environment, whether it be a poster, book, or comic, the scan feature will identify that content, thereby removing tedious work of people finding it themselves. 

For participating digital properties, the logo will link directly to the asset page on the app. For those who choose not to download the app, the content will still be available, but only as a preview. To get full use of any titles in the app library, an account will be required. The more extensive elements, such as comics or a game, will require purchase.

In instances when the logo is not linked to a page or when someone finds the page organically, a search function will be present.

If someone starts with a comic that is the third chapter, the app will point them to the chapters prior to that, so that they can move forward with all of the information.

The app will eliminate uncertainty and guessing on behalf of casual fans to help them find new content and provide a direct path to fandom.

Memorable: What Modern Transmedia could look like

To best demonstrate what a transmedia story could look like, I wrote and designed a short story. Though each installment is just a small representation of the potential, it shows how easily that multiple stories, with a little planning, could blend together to become one big narrative.

Memorable: An Original Transmedia Story is a story about me and my immersive memories. Each installment takes the viewer from one recollection to another, flowing from one medium to the next. The media used is text, comics, interactive image, video, music, and a podcast.

An extra incentive for marketing professionals to use the Xtend app is the interactive image. As an example of how it could work, in Memorable: An Original Transmedia Story, the viewer makes their way through the panorama of my childhood room, with links appearing on certain items leading to online products.

Another example from my story that could be used as a marketing tactic in the app is a featured playlist. At one point, I stumble across on old mix CD. While most of the songs will be available for listening, links will take listeners to platforms where the music is available for purchase.

Panorama from Memorable with commentary.

Conclusion

The media world is expanding and evolving at a rate faster than ever before. Media that did not even exist 20 years ago have become primary delivery systems of content for many around the world. With these rapid changes and shifting habits, a new mindset and process of enveloping viewers into the worlds being made by creators is possible more than ever and fans have shown they’re ready to consumer it.

Transmedia is not a new idea: One concept or world spread across multiple delivery systems. For example, we no longer rely just on boats for shipping cargo, or planes, or trains. They work in harmony to get the people of the world what they need and what they want. By working in harmony, the amount of content increases, boosting the opportunity for fandom and removing the exclusivity that comes with it today.

By utilizing a depot for transmedia stories, studios, publishers, and creators have the chance for their stories to be seen that much more and have them be a part of something bigger. If technology is allowing the Earth to feel smaller