Illustration Design to Derive Storytelling for the Elderly in South Korea: (Traditional folklore of Heungbu and Nolbu) [국내 노년층의 스토리텔링 도출을 위한 그림 디자인 연구: (흥부와 놀부 전래 동화를 중심으로)]

Abstract

Background Storytelling contents are being utilized in various ways overseas for cognitive stimulation of the elderly. However, foreign classical stories are not suitable for the South Korean elderly. Recently, a folklore book for the elderly was published in South Korea, but it was produced without a proper illustration study reflecting the characteristics of the elderly. When producing storytelling content for the South Korean elderly, it is necessary to produce familiar traditional folklores and illustrations that reflect appropriate design elements. Methods First, this study identifies design elements to be considered according to the characteristics of the elderly when developing illustrations through literature review. Second, the concept of Correct Information Unit(CIU), a semantic information unit that derives storytelling, is applied to the illustrations to conduct an illustration study that can be used for storytelling content. Third, the basis for follow-up studies is prepared through survey evaluation. Results Eight illustrations of Heungbu and Nolbu reflecting the design elements including illustration style, color, shape, and layout, and considering the cognitive and physical characteristics of the elderly, were completed. These illustrations were classified into eight episodes according to the storytelling classification criteria, and were produced by reflecting the CIU, which contains core information. In the completed illustrations, an evaluation with questionnaire was conducted for the average youth and the average elderly. Conclusions Part-of-speech analysis was conducted based on the stories collected from the survey. As a result of comparative analysis with the selected CIU, both groups show high appearance rates. In addition, the low standard deviation between the young and the elderly can be seen as final illustrations that delivers accurate information. Therefore, this study presents a series of illustrations containing appropriate design elements and CIUs for the elderly and could be used when producing illustrations of storytelling content for South Korean elderly in the future. © This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/), which permits unrestricted educational and non-commercial use, provided the original work is properly cited.