Muse

UX Design / Advertising

Overview

Muse is the product of a school brief to create a piece of design that would help the ongoing process of Truth and Reconciliation in Canada by bringing awareness to an Indigenous issue. We wanted to ask the question, how can we teach people about Truth and Reconciliation?

Award

RGD SoGood 2020
GDC Salzaar 2020
Jim Rimmer for Design 2018

Team

For this project I worked on a team with Brynn Staples and Emily Huynh. As a team we conducted research and defined the brand and direction of the project.

In a workshop with First Nations Film program students at Capilano University, our class was guided through a Blanket Exercise that had us physically immersed in the process of colonialization in Canada. The exercise made us realize our lack of awareness about the land we occupy, and how little we, like many other non-Indigenous people, know about Canada’s history of colonialization. We also went on a field trip to the Royal BC Museum in Victoria, where we learned about BC’s Indigenous heritage and languages through immersive, interactive exhibits.

After the workshop and field trip, our team was struck by the omnipresence of Indigenous land and stories all around us, as well as the way that interactive design can bring learning to life. We wanted to use interactive design to help non-Indigenous people better acknowledge the Indigenous land and stories around us.

We conducted additional research at the Museum of Anthropology at UBC to find out more about local Indigenous practices throughout time. Our experience at the Museum informed our colour palette, iconography, and the scenes we chose to highlight in our mockups.

Research

In response to our research, we arrived at the concept of Muse: an interactive education app that aims to take the ‘um’ out of ‘museum,’ bringing Indigenous learning to life. Muse uses augmented reality and location data to make the past present, highlighting Indigenous artifacts at the user’s location in order to teach users about Indigenous land and stories outside of a traditional museum setting.

We designed the brand and interface to engage a young audience while remaining sophisticated enough for users of any age to enjoy. Friendly typefaces and a limited colour palette inspired by a key teal found in Indigenous art keeps the initiative approachable, playful, and credible.

In addition, we created a print campaign to generate awareness about the app. The campaign is a real-world version of the app, bringing BC’s Indigenous past to Vancouver’s public spaces.Through the app and campaign, Muse engages people in reconciliation on an individual level in an immersive, interactive way, helping to foster “dialogue and [create] transformative experiences that revitalize the relationships among Indigenous peoples and all Canadians” (Reconciliation Canada).

Design