Where I Started
As the project manager for our AR stop on Josephine Butler with 51 Steps to Freedom by Hoverlay, I was excited to take on a leadership role that built on my background in directing/producing and running my own business. I looked forward to the challenge of keeping our creative process creative and yet organized while collaborating closely with our client and my team.
Our team chose Josephine Butler because she was a dynamic woman who fought for her community and for justice, not for recognition or power. She wasn’t interested in “climbing the ladder,” only in making the world around her better.
What touched me most was my group’s enthusiasm for telling her story. I’m the only woman on the team, and I was floored when the guys said this was their first choice — specifically because they wanted to highlight Butler’s contributions to women’s rights and social activism. I loved that moment. It set the tone for our collaboration, and honestly, right now I feel like I could work with these guys on anything.
Process & Progress
I created our weekly schedule of goals and milestones, adjusting things as needed as the project evolved. My main responsibility has been to keep us on track while encouraging everyone to be as creative as possible — balancing our artistic ideas with what the client actually needs. It’s a constant dance between structure and imagination, and I’ve really enjoyed working with the team to find that rhythm.
One of my favorite a-ha moments came during a brainstorming session when Garrett suggested using the campaign buttons that Josephine Butler was known to wear as interactive elements. 
He imagined them as objects that visitors could tap to learn more about her life. That simple idea became something much bigger, with some of the buttons transforming into portals that open scenes or information about specific causes Butler fought for. It was the perfect example of how our team’s creativity and collaboration come together to make the AR experience functional and yet fun and intuitive to the user.
In addition to managing the team, I also took on the responsibility of building our project website. Rather than creating a new site on a free platform like Wix, I decided to build it as an extension of my own existing website. My reasoning is based on a desire for permanence. Our professor mentioned that past student projects hosted on free sites often became broken or disappeared once they were no longer updated. Since I already maintain my own professional site, this ensures that our project’s website will continue to function long after the class ends.
This project and its website carry a deeper sense of responsibility. There is so little consolidated information online about Josephine Butler, and our site could become one of the few authoritative spaces honoring her life and work. That realization gave extra weight to the project, because now it’s not just a student assignment, but something that could genuinely contribute to keeping her story alive.
Creative Reflection
One of our biggest challenges has been the sheer scope of Josephine Butler’s life. The more we research her, the more we realize just how many organizations and causes she was involved in. She truly was a dynamic force: someone who saw a problem and immediately took action to make things better. It’s inspiring, but it’s also a challenge to represent all of that within a single AR experience.
Another major challenge has been the lack of documentation about her. For someone who did so much, there is surprisingly little visual or archival material available. I’ve found that really tragic. This incredible woman gave her entire life to serving her community, and yet so much of her story has been lost or forgotten. I’ve often caught myself wishing I could find her next of kin, just to learn more, to see more photos, and to hear personal stories that might bring her to life again.
Next Steps
Our next phase is putting together the mock-up of the full AR stop, which will bring all of our ideas together for the first time. 
I’m really excited to see how the different elements begin to connect into one cohesive experience.
One part I’m both excited and a little nervous about is our idea to include a virtual statue of Josephine Butler on the steps of the Josephine Butler Parks Center. Visitors would be able to take a photo with her, almost like meeting her in person. It’s a beautiful concept and is a way to honor her.
The challenge is that we’re developing everything from Los Angeles, while the Center is all the way in Washington, D.C., and we don’t have a travel budget. So, we’re getting creative and finding ways to make it work remotely by testing placements virtually, and hoping that our mock-up helps bridge that distance. It’s ambitious, but that’s what I love about our team: they aren't afraid to keep pushing and to think bigger and to find solutions together.