Google Street Views juxtaposed with historical paintings unite past and present

I admire a well-crafted visual that speaks volumes. Check out this series by British collage artist Halley Docherty, whose images create a fascinating moment in time travel by superimposing historical paintings onto present day Google Street Views.

Painting: Night view of Saruwaka Street (1856) by Utagawa Hiroshige. Photo: This view south in Asakusa, Tokyo, is in an area nearly destroyed in 1923, by the Great Kanto earthquake. Photograph: Halley Docherty

Painting: La Modiste Sur Les Champs-Élysées (1889) by Jean Béraud. Photograph: Halley Docherty

Painting: A Regatta on the Grand Canal (c.1740) by Canaletto. Photograph: Halley Docherty

Painting: The 9th of November, 1888 by William Logsdail (1890) A Lord Mayor's Procession passes through Bank Junction. On the left side of the canvas is The Old Bank of England, shown here 50 years before demolition. Photograph: shystone/Reddit

See images from the London series

See images from the Global series 

SKETCHBOOK STORYTELLING: PEER INSIDE AND STAY A WHILE

An artist's sketchbook can read like a personal journal. These pages got me thinking ... what a great approach for telling brand stories - in print or digitally. 

Who could resist spending time snooping around? 

The art is totally engaging and I especially like the way the copy is broken into bits and bites. 

Transmedia storytelling engages audiences who want to be heard and validated

Digital Media Wire recently posed five questions to  Jeff Gomez, CEO of Starlight Runner Entertainment and a leading figure in the emerging field of cross-media storytelling called "Transmedia." 

DMW’s Q&A is a very good read; here’s a sampling of what Jeff said:

“For me, transmedia narrative is a kind of subset of cross-media content. It's the technique of conveying messages, themes and storylines across multiple media platforms in a way that is both artful and coordinated with care.

With transmedia you're not repeating the same story on a movie screen, a TV screen, a novel and a videogame. You are using each one to tell a complete piece of your story, and combined they can all become a deeper, richer and more immersive experience.  Different aspects of the story or story world are created to play to the specific strengths of the medium.

From a business standpoint, much has been said about how transmedia can help build franchises and maximize return on investment for entertainment properties. The toughest aspect of getting transmedia right is that you have to build two-way communication into the apparatus of your narrative.

Everyone talks about Star Wars to exemplify good transmedia, but I love talking about Glee, because what makes transmedia so unique and relevant is that it is fundamentally about telling stories to a generation of people who want to be heard, and who are used to being validated for their participation. That's what interactive media is about in essence: response.”

On April 25th in Los Angeles, Jeff Gomez, together with Digital Media Wire, will host the first in a series of transmedia workshops on how to use and leverage the most effective transmedia techniques.

Peter Gruber's new book about the "Hidden Power of Story"

Great video Q&A courtesy of Harvard Business Review: Peter Guber, chairman and CEO of the Mandalay Entertainment Group, explains how to establish an emotional connection with any audience. His new book Tell to Win: Connect, Persuade, and Triumph with the Hidden Power of Story (March 2011, Crown Business) is sold on Amazon.

Incidentally,clicking the anchor text above will take you to my new Storyful page where I took a crack at curating material for this post. I must say, excited as I am about the storytelling potential of curation services like Storyful and Storify I've yet to find one that is easy to use. It's surprising that Storyful does not offer a quick tutorial because the site is not very intuitive in my opinion. I'll continue to putter with it to see what I can do with a bit of practice.

Are you using curatorial tools and if so what's been your experience? Any recommendations?