Where is the Bird?

Where Is The Bird started when two friends were having a conversation about how the balance of readers consumption of media has changed and how less time is being spent learning from books and instead people watch documentaries, listen to podcasts, download apps or research through the plethora of online platforms for information on their favourite subjects. This conversation led to many ideas, including  the partnership of VIKA Books, a female-led publishing team, merging creative technology with book arts to conceive new immersive books. 

While some see screen usage as the enemy of books, we realised there could be an opportunity to combine the best visceral aspects of the physical book with the immense creative possibilities of digital. This led us to begin thinking about how books could link with smartphones to enable intuitive interplay between the printed page and content such as videos, quizzes, interviews or even augmented reality, (AR).

 Where is the bird? the first augmented reality storybook to promote British Sign Language as a language for deaf and hearing children alike. When used with our free-to-download smartphone app, Where is the Bird? showcases twenty useful everyday signs: ten augmented reality animations, and ten BSL videos demonstrated by children from Elmfield School for Deaf Children.

Turn the pages and wake up magical illustrations that pop-up out of the pages as colourful 3D animations before being paired with video demonstrations of a BSL sign.