# Explorable Explanations × Scrollytelling — composed image prompt
# IndexStyle — https://indexstyle.org/compose?ids=explorable-explanations+scrollytelling
# Explorable Explanations carries the structure and Scrollytelling appears as the accent.
# Style descriptors only. This prompt names no artist, studio, brand or work.

Produce four original images that take their structure from Explorable Explanations (technique, 2011–) and their accent from Scrollytelling (layout, 2012–).

## What to make

Make the kind of thing Explorable Explanations exists for: publishing an explanation built on a model, where readers should be able to change the assumptions themselves, or teaching material that has to show not just the conclusion but the conditions under which it flips. Choose one subject and hold it across all four.

## Structure comes from Explorable Explanations

- Numbers inside the running text sit on a dotted underline and turn blue when touched
- Dragging one of those numbers rewrites the following sentence and the neighboring figure at once
- Figures are not quarantined in a separate sandbox but sit continuous with the paragraphs around them
- Untouched, the piece still reads, because the default values already make the figures meaningful

Composition: Hold the text to a single column of roughly 600px and place each figure beside or directly after the paragraph it belongs to, close enough that the handle and its effect share one field of view. Type and lettering: Set the prose like ordinary reading matter; mark only the live numbers, with an underline and a color, and never with a different typeface.

## Accent comes from Scrollytelling, used sparingly

- A graphic that holds still on screen while a single narrow column of text passes over it
- Changes made by opacity and by moving a map, so that scrolling back undoes them in the same order
- Photography, video and data visualization sharing one article
- A path that is either straight through or branches into an optional deeper detour and returns

Let one material quality come from it: Build only changes that can run backwards, such as opacity crossfades and map moves, each tied one to one with scroll distance.

## Colour and feeling

Build the ground on #FFFFFF, carry the structure in #FDFFE9 and #0000FF, and let a single accent come from #4A4A4A. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette.
Feeling to carry: technique, play, trust.

## Where they fight

- Explorable Explanations and Scrollytelling both belong to Reading on the Web, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable.

## What goes wrong

- Explorable Explanations: If the content only shows up once the reader touches something, everyone who does not touch it gets a blank article.
- Scrollytelling: Tying a one shot animation to the scroll leaves a reader who scrolls back looking at nothing, and makes the middle of the article impossible to reread.

## Across the four

Keep the roles fixed in all four. Vary the framing, the scale and the arrangement so the set shows what this pairing can do rather than four versions of one picture.

## Constraints

- Do not imitate, reference or name any specific artist, studio, brand, character or copyrighted work.
- Do not reproduce the composition of an existing work.
- Produce original compositions in the general period languages described above.

Design specs for each entry: https://indexstyle.org/styles/explorable-explanations/design.md · https://indexstyle.org/styles/scrollytelling/design.md