The work presented in this portfolio contains key design artifacts from original sketches to animated interface examples of an augmented reality tourism trivia game. 

The Let's TOUR journey: This motion graphic was created for the Let's TOUR augmented reality trivia game tourism application. Let's TOUR is result of 11 months of research, design, revision, and implementation. The journey began with researching existing logo's used by Reykjavik Iceland.

Reykjavik Project Step 1: The original project was to develop a new brand identity for the Reykjavik, Iceland tourism industry. The project started with researching the current tourism companies and sketching logos used by the city.  

Reykjavik Project Step 2: Reseaerch on the existing logos of tourism companies in Reykjavik Iceland provided a starting point for creating mind maps. The mind maps were created to evaluate possible alternative design solutions. A mind map was created for three different aspects of the city. The information gathered through the pre-existing tourism logo research and the free association terms recorded in the mind maps was used to sketch possible design solutions. 

Reykjavik Project Step 3:  The mind maps were used as blue prints and ideas for the development of the new brand identity logo. These are some of the 500 sketches inspired by the mind maps and city research. The inspiration for the logos that were chosen for further exploration are located in the two images on the left.

Reykjavik Project Step 3: These top three logo concepts were digitized using Adobe Photoshop. These designs were used to test possible wordmark and icon relationships. The original sketches of each of these designs is visible in the left two images in the original sketches grid.

Reykjavik Project Step 4: Each of the Photoshop logo renditions were refined in Adobe Illustrator. The third logo underwent major changes. The music staff, ribbon, volcano, and whale fluke were removed. The mountain icon was changed to represent one of the sculptures in the city. The three logos where then mocked-up in single color and multi-color as seen in the image on the left. 

The image on the right are the final logo revisions with the selected wordmarks and color choices.  

Reykjavik Project Step 5: This logo is the final version and the one chosen to develop because it tells the story about the city. The minimalism is memorable. Local community know the landmarks and visitor will recognize them when they see them while touring the city.  

Reykjavik Project Step 5: The finalized logo was used to build vision boards to identify the tone and voice of the project. From left to right shows the various versions. The first two did not have the correct vision or tone to match the sleek technical aspect of the logo. The last vision board is the one that inspired the creation of the augmented reality app. The keywords Learn, Explore, Experience, and Participate was the start of the wordmark LEEP.    

Reykjavik Step 6: This is the infographic formatted for the interactive mobile app LEEP. This image features key solution images with a brief description and rational for the artifact. However, after additional research the wordmark LEEP was changed to Let's TOUR because the acronym was being used by several other companies. This project is the foundation work that was transformed into the LET'S Tour app.   

Let's Tour Step 1: This is the complete design process for the Let's TOUR brand logo from original sketches to the final version used in the brand artifacts. "Let's" refers to community. "Tour" refers to travel. "Let's Tour" combined is the story of a community experience when traveling. The connected letters of "Let's" refers to the network of streets in the navigation of the app. The globe icon "O" in tour references the global reach for the app. However, because it was hard to read at a small scale and it was to must detail it was replaced with a basic "O" with the same line weight as the rest of tour making it easier to read in single, inverse and multiple colors. The "R" went from having a disconnected center to a solid block with equal weight to the rest of the logo. The final version is easy to read at a business card icon size our banner.

Experience LET'S TOUR: Become a local in no time by playing your way through the city.

Let's TOUR Vision Board: The updated vision board uses a location specific background and a reformed choice of focus words. The updated body text reiterates the target words with the goal for the app. The new key words all address the goal of the app for the target audience.  

Let's TOUR Original App Mock-ups: These are the original iteration mock-up images for the updated Let's TOUR game interface. The app uses WAZE live navigation maps ("Free driving," 2019). While walking backpacks show up in key locations. The user taps the backpack. 

The original concept was using the step by step transitions of other similar games was for the backpack to fill the screen and the user would swipe the backpack to activate the trivia questions. However, this concept was removed as user feedback revealed that many users do not like the tediousness of multiple screens and superfluous steps needed to get to the reason for playing the game. For example in the Pokémon Go (Niantic, 2016) interface it take 8 taps on the screen to learn the characteristics of a character once captured.  

Thus, more focus was placed on the innovation of the design to create a stream lined uncluttered experience for the end user. The questions are location specific. As the user plays the game areas o the map are highlighted to track progress. Additional features include social media and heath tracker sync options. 

Let's TOUR Target Audience Survey: The objective of this survey is to evaluate the functionality, effectiveness, and production quality of the draft prototype for the Let's TOUR app. The questions are geared to gather data to verify the real-world application potential for further development. The results of the survey corroborates the current income, gender, and age range statistics of similar app games.  

Key data indicates the design is reaching the target audience based on the correct identification of the brands industry sector. The majority of survey participants correctly associated the logo with the travel industry and the design with the interactive game play.

Design Solution: These screenshots show examples of potential questions. The background image is full screen with all distractions removed. The Question tabs are translucent to enhance the full screen experience when answering the games questions.

Let's TOUR Sample Animation: These animated .gif's show the rough idea of how the login screen, and question and answers work. Each were created using the animation feature in Adobe Photoshop. The login screen uses the timeline feature, the Puffins were created using the cell animation feature. The Puffin on the left shows the non-augmented reality gameplay. The Puffin on the right illustrates the augmented reality interface. 

The goal of this project is to put the app into future development starting with Reykjavik then adding additional tourism cities.  

References:

Niantic. (2016). Get up and go. In Pokémon Go. Retrieved from                   

         https://www.pokemongo.com/en-us/