Emily O’Neal
I’m experience designer, specializing in immersive and game design. I’m based out of Brooklyn, NY.
Charleston Reconstructed
2020 | Brown Institute
TOOLS: Sketch
Reclaiming Public Spaces
Charleston Reconstructed is an immersive documentary designed to digitally transform public spaces that contain Confederate era monuments.
I was the lead visual designer working on developing the branding, UX, and UI art. for the project. The goal of our project was to create a modern, forward-looking experience while grounding the visitor in the historical context and ideological battleground surrounding Marion Square.
Branding for the Past and the Future
The main design challenge I faced was marrying a historical aesthetic & feel with the very modern interactions involved with location-based augmented reality.
I spent about a month researching best practices in mobile AR and creating a set of rules that for both AR and non-AR contexts. High contrast was the most important constant in all of the designs, which led to using off-white as our main body font.
Prototyping
I put together an interactive prototype complete with transitions and animations; functional menus; and AR mockups.
The pandemic unfortunately haulted our on-location testing and ultimately the launch, which limited our ability to iterate on design choices. The project was a fun branding exercise and foray in mobile, AR design.