Josephine Butler: Shining Light On One Of Washington, DC’s Most Influential Figures
Now that our project has officially gotten its legs fully off the ground, it’s exciting for me to talk about the experience I’ve had within my group thus far.
Getting Started
After our group officially joined together, we quickly presented each other with our strengths from past experiences. Given my history of creating unique visual styles for my work, it was great to have been recommended for the Art Director position. It was also empowering to see my group members given roles that they all look forward to fulfilling. This is a necessity that I believe our team needed to have, especially since we’ve chosen to focus on Josephine Dorothy Butler, a widely unknown activist who was so influential to the history of America’s capital.
Organization
While it doesn’t sound too thrilling, an important first step I took for my team was creating two separate log documents to keep track of the assets we’ve made or collected. The amount of photographs, videos, and other important information required to bring our artistic vision to life meant ensuring that all of our assets would be simple enough to find. These documents not only provide us with a clear path to where everything is located, but they also help present asset creation requests to our Asset Manager, Zen Tapia. So far, it has proven to be a huge help in keeping track of the elements and resources needed to properly describe Josephine Butler’s history within our project.
Style Guide
The pre-production phase also meant creating the style guide for our group to follow. One of the challenges, however, was making a guide that would stick with the style of 51 Steps to Freedom while also bringing a creative spin that remains consistent with Butler’s life. That is why the approach I took included the colors 51 Steps to Freedom is known for, along with fonts and images that best relate to the experience we have in mind. One of the main challenges with creating a visual guide was choosing how our interactive buttons would appear to viewers. However, with feedback from my team, we were able to settle on pin-back buttons, a style that we believe strongly exemplifies the strength and determination Butler brought to the causes she fought for. With our visual ideas now being fully realized, the next steps include creating working concepts to test within our AR space.
Moving Forward
My primary goal moving forward with our Josephine Butler project is to ensure that the visual style remains consistent throughout the experience. So far, it’s been great brainstorming different concepts of what viewers could interact with. I have a lot to look forward to as I further develop this project with my team. This will also be an important opportunity for people unfamiliar with Josephine Butler to better understand the importance of her work, especially as it relates to current-day activist movements.