Another ABC app? Why?

Kristin Reiber Harris

ABC.DC:An Art Alphabet  Available soon in the App Store.

Why another ABC app?

I spend an hour a week with 3 year olds and my iPad at Elizabeth's Early Learning Center in Lynchburg, VA. I love this time with them because they are such radiant, intelligent individuals that embrace the moment and run with it. They constantly amaze me in wonderful ways.


The Alphabet is an important skill to master

I think it's easy to forget, if you don't spend time with very young children who are building the skill-set to read, how important all contact with letters is to them. The staff at EELC does a great job having words in large letters visible constantly in their classroom. The most obvious to me as a visitor are the plastic trays where they keep their stuff.  When I was sharing my ABC app with them or we are working on one of the many other letter apps on my iPad, it's always fun to see how they each claim a letter. The first letter of their name is an entry to the alphabet that they can claim as their own. I still feel that way, "K" is my letter.

ABC.DC: An Art Alphabet, images courtesy of the National Gallery of Art. Each page is interactive with added animation, hence the dragon kite in the Bellow's etching.

My ulterior motive

Back to my point, why another ABC app? I have an ulterior motive. Sure, I want to support young children learning the alphabet and I find the alphabet a wonderful armature for organizing information. My ulterior motive? It's to introduce the children and their families to art they may not have seen yet, or may never see. This is not a totally unique spin on the ABC idea, but presents an opportunity. How many of us spend time pondering the wonders of ancient Chinese bronze casting? That was the ulterior motive for my first app, Duck Takes A Ride: An Art Story. 

My initial inspiration for ABC.DC:An Art Alphabet was The National Gallery of Art releasing large numbers of images into the public domain. This meant I had access to thousands of images without restrictions. This was wonderful news! I was off and running. This project had its fits and starts, but it is currently in the queue at the App Store for imminent release. Stay tuned...

A familiar concept and lots of art

My task in surveying the available images in the National Gallery of Art collection was to find objects with great kid appeal and wonderful potential for animation. "F" was a great example. This delightful frog inkwell (with help from Photoshop and AfterEffects) hops off and back onto the page. With appropriate sound effects, of course.

Touch the frog and see her jump!

"Q" is another favorite. My frame by frame animation is done in Flash, imported into Photoshop for tweaking and then uploaded to Demibooks Composer Studio, my wonderful development app. The Flash animation is place over the  artwork and reinforces the frantic steps of the Gould and Richter lithograph of a quail. The animation as well as the text is activated by touch, as you would expect.

Think fast paced accordion and you get the picture.

  
I think it's easy to see what I have added in animation over this beautiful Beich drawing of a waterfall. The kids are savvy to the results of touching iPads, so getting them to interact is a no-brainer. They see the original artwork when the page opens.  My interest is in accentuating some of the characteristics of the art from a preschool point of view. How can interacting with this image help them "see" it in a different way?

Another great thing about the alphabet

On the horizon I see... ABC.LA, ABC.PDX and ABC.BKLYN. All of these cities have art museums sharing some of their images with media producers. Yeah.


 ABC.DC: An Art Alphabet coming soon to the App Store