My role
Built vector type, 3D forms, and augmented reality.
Context
A virtual typographic sculpture in the Venetian landscape.
Status
Photographs and video document the working AR experiment.
I’ve always been drawn to the space between analog and digital. I started out trying to animate a printed poster and found augmented reality, which can do a lot more than that, including putting a three-dimensional object into a real place.
The inspiration was the I amsterdam letters: large, physical, typographic. I had a conference in Venice coming up, so I set out to put a virtual “Ciao Venezia” sculpture into the Venetian landscape and photograph it through the app.
I had no idea if it would work. I’d never done anything like it. It worked pretty darn good.
How. I drew the type as vectors in Illustrator, built the 3D form in Fusion 360, and fought for a few frustrating hours to get translucent skins and transparent PNGs to export the way I pictured them. The AR experience was built in Zappar’s ZapWorks from its templates and tutorials. At the time, viewers used a free app on iPhone or Android.
Why it matters. I have enough software range and enough programming to hack my way through an idea I don’t know how to build yet. That’s the same habit I bring to product work. I can also see a commercial use: a brand mark placed in a destination, photographed by visitors, and shared.
The photographs and video document that experiment.
