The Hero’s Journey Threshold Project
For this project, we were given the term ‘liminality.’ I decided that liminality, to me, meant an in-between space. I interpreted this in a lot of ways, whether that was a literal in-between space of doors and windows, religious rites of passage, or movie opening credits.
I really tried to think of liminality in both an obvious way and something more metaphorical that could be interesting both in digital and print. When choosing a direction I wanted to pursue, I thought about designing combining new and old skills and tools. Immediately, I was intrigued by the idea of a Hero’s Journey as liminal experience.
The Hero’s Journey is classic story-structure utilized in many iconic fables and new storylines. The term was coined by Joseph Campbell in the 1940s. In Campbell’s writing, he talks about myth, the power of certain imagery, and the impact that has on not only media, but also perception of daily life. The Hero’s Journey is a multi-step story where the hero, or the main character, receives a call to action, then ventures out, faces challenges, and eventually returns, overcoming any hardship and learning lessons along the way. This structure is evident in many beloved stories such as Star Wars, Finding Nemo, The Odyssey, and many others.
Originally, I intended to create two illustrated posters, referencing key points in The Odyssey, one poster would have an AR element, giving the viewer more information on the Hero’s Journey. However, over spring break the COVID-19 outbreak forced us all to remain home and away from the studios (and the printers). We then switched our focus to digital only, tasked with creating three 1080x1080 sized instagram posts with an AR capability.
Since the project changed greatly, I want to shift my ideas. I thought it could be a fun idea to blend a more humorous idea of liminality with something a bit more classic. I also wanted to create an experience where the user could travel through a space, telling its own story.
I decided to go with the imagery of a door and threshold. When paired with AR, it would transform into a multi-layered story-book like experience. My first go around was unsuccessful. The base images that I chose would not registered with Artivive, the AR platform we used to create the experiences.
When faced with this problem, I realized I had to create more contrast. I added color and elements that gave the viewer subtle context clues about what the AR had to offer.
Once I created more contrast with the base images, I wanted to add video and more image layers. Originally, I decided to use already existing illustrations, giving the piece a more aged and classic look. I took the images to photoshop and cut out the background, animated them in simple ways.
I then wanted to add context via a text blurb, explaining the purpose of the motion and giving some more insight into The Hero’s Journey. However, due to my lack of experience with Artivive and experimentation, these drafts did not turn out nearly that way I wanted. I intended to have a lot of transparency with my videos, but they ended up having a grain and messy look to them. The text in the background wasn’t readable, floating behind the color layer and dwarfing the foreground.
I also got feedback that the perspective on my base images were off, making the piece a little awkward and confusing. Luckily, my parents who I am currently quarantined with taught drawing perspective at a university for twenty years. My mom and I spent a good portion of a day, looking at different doors in our house, she taught me about one point and two point perspective. I took these hand drawings into illustrator and refined.
Once I determined the correct perspective for the base images of the doors, I focused on the other layers. I felt the classic illustrations were really clunky and didn’t turn out how I envisioned. I wanted the pieces to have more of a story book feel. I researched some illustration styles and found reference images for The Odyssey. From there I brought the images into illustrator and used the pencil and brush tools to create simple line drawings with color fills relating to the complimentary colors in the base images.
When putting these layers into AR, i decided to keep them static and play more with the depth of each layer. I thought this was less distracting and gave a more relaxed and simple feeling the piece which paired well with the simplicity of the base images and illustrations.
For the final AR pieces, I included a short excerpt from The Odyssey, an easily recognizable text that related back to the illustrations: the call to action, the challenges, and the return of Odysseus. And I also included a description of the stage of the Hero’s Journey the illustration and doors depict.
The final pieces in AR can be viewed with the Artivive app. Overall, I’m happy with the progress I made blending new and old tools. It provided me with a challenge both with the change in project expectations and the technology.
