2023 has been a fantastic year for interactive, immersive experiences – especially here at Stornaway. With an astounding 25,000 users making their own unique projects, we are so proud to be supporting so many creatives internationally and have been so excited to see everything they’ve created.
We’ve found it hard to pick our highlights, but here are just some.
Join us as we rewind the 12 months of 2023 in Stornaway!
DECEMBER 2023
Stornaway Creator Showcase 🪄
25,000 people now use Stornaway, and we wanted to celebrate the amazing projects they’ve been making. So, in December we released the ‘Stornaway Creator Showcase’ – a hub of content made by YOU, for others to use for inspiration for their own projects.
Categorised and reviewed by our own Stornaway team, each of these projects have been hand-selected for their amazing use of interactivity.
Academic Summit #3 🧑🏫
With so many academics using Stornaway to bring a fresh take on their teaching and research, we once again wanted to showcase their work to our community.
Diving into global perspectives on interactive storytelling in education were our four speakers: Kat Rolley from A Gray Space, Alex Mitchell from National University of Singapore, Julie Stephens DeJonge from University of Central Missouri and Medrine Nyambura from Saint Louis University.
NOVEMBER 2023
Custom Image Buttons 🚀
In November, we launched our brand new custom image buttons. These help you to prompt your viewers to make choices without the need for use of words.
These can be calls to action, logos, icons, or visual prompts to move your story onwards.
We’ve even used it in Stornaway’s own project: ‘Life Moves Pretty Fast’
OCTOBER 2023
Adobe Creative Cloud Integrations ☁️
Following our attendance at the Adobe MAX conference in LA, we launched our new Adobe integration, bringing Stornaway inside your Adobe Creative Cloud apps.
Not only that, but you can now use Adobe Express within the Stornaway media panel to create photos and videos to level up your interactive projects.
Ignition Talks 🔥
To celebrate Stornaway’s sponsorship of creativity conference, Adobe MAX, we shared a series of creative talks with interactive video creators. We spoke to two amazing creatives who’ve used Stornaway for some phenomenal projects:
- Morgan Obregon from Living Security on ‘Masquerade’ 🎭
- Paul Raschid on ‘The Gallery’ 🖼️
SEPTEMBER 2023
Train the Trainers Summit 📚
For our second academic summit of 2023, we gathered together teachers and academics to dive into the world of Stornaway and its capabilites.
Hosted by Head of Partnerships, Charlotte Panchaud, featuring Co-founders, Ru Howe and Kate Dimbleby.
AUGUST 2023
Templates 🗺️
To help get you up and running with all the possibilities that Stornaway offers, we unveiled nine new interactive story map templates – covering the most popular types of Stornaway projects.
From a Choose Your Own Path lunchtime story to a Winnie the Pooh quiz, from a 360 Location Tour of Tiree to an Interactive Conversation with Kate Dimbleby, we’ve created 9 ready-made projects that you can customise with your own content, see how they’ve been designed – and share!
JULY 2023
The Sparkies Awards ⚡️
The Stornaway team were delighted to be awarded ‘Best Startup’ at the 2023 Tech Spark Sparkies Awards.
In attendance was Skaidra Bakė – Back End Ruby Developer, Kate Moody – Video Producer and Customer Workflow Support, Ru Howe – Co-founder, Fran Solo – Senior Front End Developer, and Charlotte Panchaud – Head of Partnerships.
Story Islands Podcast: Episode Two 🎙️
In this episode of Story Islands, the video podcast for interactive storytellers, Stornaway founders Kate and Ru explore one of Ru’s favourite topics – Choose Your Own Adventure gamebooks.
Why were they so beloved during their heyday in the 80s and what inspiration can today’s interactive video creators take from these literary classics?
Next Level Game Logic Launches 🕹️
Add more advanced settings to your choices with this game-changing mechanic. Keep track of scores, adjust character relationships or manage inventories.
Our new game settings feature gives you the power to store, change and check the value of these variables across your project. Power your interactive film games, training scenarios and quizzes through our no-code drag-and-drop editor.
Stornaway Team Day at Dartington 🌱
The team took some well-needed rest and relaxation, while looking at the next six months at Stornaway. Nothing beats face-to-face interactions, and spending quality time together was invaluable for bonding and planning for an exciting future.
Go team Stornaway 🌟
JUNE 2023
Our First Academic Summit 📚
Stornaway.io sponsored its first Higher Education Summit in June 2023, hosted by Dr Roy Hanney, Associate Professor at Southampton Solent University.
The event was highly sought after, with over 80 attendees, 8 speakers and many great talks given during the event.
Charlotte joins Team Stornaway 🚀
Charlotte joined us in June as our new Head of Partnerships and New Business 💪
Charlotte is a super organised individual who thrives off being around people and loves a challenge! Her career journey so far has predominantly been focussed around stakeholder and account management and she’s excited to bring this experience to the Stornaway team. In her free time, the challenges don’t stop as she loves powerlifting, fundraising and anything that involves a bit of adrenaline!
Welcome to the team ✨
MAY 2023
Story Islands Podcast: Episode One 🎙️
In this episode of Story Islands, the video podcast for interactive storytellers, Kate and Ru talk to Natasha McKenzie, Stornaway’s CMO. Natasha was there at the start of Stornaway, bringing with her previous experience for multinational agencies McCann Erickson Worldgroup and M&C Saatchi.
Sky joins Team Stornaway 🚀
Sky joined us in May as our new Backend Ruby Developer 💪
Sky lives in Bristol where Stornaway Headquarters are based but loves to travel – and has already brought us gifts from her hometown in Lithuania. She has a passion for discovering and learning new things (ranging from technologies, recipes, music genres to dance styles!) that makes her a fierce and brilliant addition to the team. She is excited about the interactivity element in video-play and the endless creative decisions and impact Stornaway users can have to the user experience because of it!
Welcome to the team ✨
APRIL 2023
The Gallery at London Games Festival 🎬
The Gallery by British director Paul Rashid hit screens at the London Games Festival, gaining a wonderful review from The Guardian.
The Gallery was officially released in September 2022. Receiving a host of outstanding reviews and a cinematic premiere at the Dinard Film Festival.
MARCH 2023
Fran joins Team Stornaway 🚀
Fran joined us in March as our new Senior Front End Developer 💪
Fran is well known in the tech community of Bristol where Stornaway was born! She joins us to help shape this exciting next phase of our no-code interactive immersive editor. Her experience and passion for accessibility and inclusivity make her a key part of our future. She brings her development expertise, passion, creativity and empathy to the team.
Welcome to the team ✨
The Illuminated Text 💬
A favourite for Team Stornaway…
Theatre practitioner, Rob Myles is using interactive video to pioneer a movement for greater accessibility towards Shakespeare’s iconic texts.
‘Illuminated Text’ offers a deep dive into ‘Hamlet’, highlighting Shakespeare’s expertise in rhythm, emotion, and language through eye-catching graphic art.
FEBRUARY 2023
Kate joins Team Stornaway 🚀
Kate (commonly known as ‘Moody’ to Team Stornaway) joined us in February as our new Video Producer and Customer Workflow Support 💪
As a recent graduate from an arts degree in filmmaking at UWE, Kate has a huge amount of creativity and zest to bring to the Stornaway team.
She helped to beta-test Stornaway’s first release, joining the team in February 2023 as a part-time communications assistant, being promoted to a video producer in July 2023.
Welcome to the team ✨
JANUARY 2023
Female Founders 💃
Co-founder Kate Dimbleby joins Female Founders by Creative UK!
“One of the best thing about being in this amazing group of #FemaleFounders Creative UK is the inspiration from other women both in the group and outside whose stories we get to hear.”
Gemma joins Team Stornaway 🚀
Gemma joined us in January as our new Head of Product 💪
Gemma’s been with us since the very first Stornaway workshop, where we sketched out our plans for Stornaway. She got our vision immediately and was full of ideas, thoughts and suggestions about the user experience. She’s been brilliantly coordinating the team, unlocking our intuitive UX and features with a light touch ever since.
Welcome to the team ✨
