Danielle Flinn - Experience Eastern

Summary

Experience Eastern is a physical experience design installation that provides viewers with an interactive way to engage with educational material about the university through augmented reality. My role as project manager, involved leading a team of 25 creatives in the concept ideation, visual direction, and execution of the project.

Status Developed / Installed

Client Eastern Washington University

Timeline 05/20/19-06/11/2019
Uninstalled, 12/2019

Major Tasks Project Manager / Physical Experience Designer

Platforms Physical Space / Augmented Reality

Design Tools Adobe XD
ZapWorks Studio (AR Software)
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe InDesign

UX Methods Creative Brief
Sketches
Digital Mockups
Physical Installation

Collaborators Travis Masingale (Instructor)
25 other Designers

Process

Planning

Requirements

We mapped out the project requirements during the first class meeting. We had an installation location, the physical aspect would be printed in black and white (due to budget constraints), content would include information about the university, each student would create an AR experience, and each team would represent a different university career explorer path: creators, doers, helpers, organizers, persuaders and thinkers.

Brainstorming

Each group split up to collaborate together on an idea for the visual direction of the physical display. groups to brainstorm a visual direction. During my team's collaboration, we discussed using a circular halftone style. We thought the curved shapes would be inviting for the audience. One of the designers on my team put together mockups using the installation location, and I pitched it to the rest of the class. After some discussion, the other groups agreed to the idea and each group chose a number to begin designing for.

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Design

Content Creation

For the content in our section of the display, my group decided we wanted to focus on telling our personal stories about attending EWU. We ended up with 6 AR Zapcode experiences; 4 of these were our student stories, 1 an informative experience with links to application information, and finally an EWU banner with a 3D animated eagle (our mascot). With the content in hand, we began mocking up the visuals.

Production

The week prior to the installment date, we prepped the 6 designs to submit to the printer. I facilitated the 6 groups design file hand-off and worked with my teammate to combine each groups' main circle visual into 1 comprehensive file. Then, I tiled the design based on the physical space dimensions, and sent the documents to the printer to be printed on thin bond paper.

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Installation

The Installment Plan

The Plan

After picking up the printed sheets, I drafted an installation plan to help the class install (by wheat paste) the printed sheets correctly. Because the building was 9 feet tall and the each printed tile measured 4ft tall, there would be 2 pages high; we needed to understand the order of the printed tiles and where they needed to be mounted.

We trimmed to bleed and numbered each tile to keep them in order. The numbers on each tile corresponded to the yellow labeled numbers in the installation plan.

Install Day

We mixed the wheat paste, and used 2 teams of 3 students to begin mounting the design. One student held the tile, another spotted from the ground and the 3rd began applying the paste to the hold the design in place.

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Impact

The installation and campus reception was a success. It was invaluable to be able to work with like-minded designers and create this large scale installment, demonstrating the greatness which is only possible when people come together to work toward a shared goal. The experience even gained a spotlight from the university's Marketing and Communication office and was also featured in the Eastern Magazine, the school's alumni magazine.

The installation remained up until December 2019.