SHARE CARD

Recognition

Winner, 2021 C2A Creative Communication Award

SHARE CARD is a prototype for an augmented reality (AR) greeting card service that allows people to connect more closely with their loved ones and deliver warmth and affection. It provides promising solutions to people who are far away from their family and friends and want to reach out to them in a special way. The goal of SHARE CARD is to expand the enjoyment and sentimentality of receiving a card, using AR effects to bring the card’s printed illustrations to life.

THESIS ADVISORS. Ellen Lupton, Jennifer Cole Phillips, Bobby Joe Smith III, Minsun Eo

FACULTY ADVISORS. Lisa Perrin, Sean Dong, Radhames Mora

WRITING ADVISORS. Sukyun Lee, Ashley Guchhait

THESIS CRITICS. Silas Munro, Annaka Olsen

“Being connected to others socially is widely considered a fundamental human need—crucial to both well-being and survival.”

Julianne Holt-Lunstad, Ph.D. and professor of psychology at Brigham Young University. 

Communication is a part of nearly every aspect of our daily lives and is essential for living a normal, balanced lifestyle because human beings are social creatures. With the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic lasting a whole year, physical distancing and being confined at home lead many of us to feel socially isolated and suffer from mental health conditions.

For example, due to the pandemic, I could not travel to see my family and friends, and socialize with my graduate school community at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), leading me to feel disconnected. After finishing spring semester 2020, I was supposed to visit South Korea to see my family during the summer break but ended up staying in the States. While staying at home, I found my letterbox where I keep my old cards and letters. I brought the box from South Korea because of its sentimental value, which unexpectedly became impactful due to the pandemic and the tolls of its physical distancing. Although it is always important to stay connected, this experience taught me the importance of reaching out to loved ones on a more personalized level. To solve this problem, I created the idea of a fictional augmented reality greeting card service that allows people to connect with their loved ones more closely.

SHARE CARD Intro Video After deciding my concept for the intro video animation, I visualized the story as sequential images using the script. Storyboarding is a great tool for planning; it helps me to decide how to visualize scenes and how to summarize the story.  

Narration: Laura Beth | Music: Telephone (Instrumental) by Garland

Logo Sketches I focused on representing friendliness and the relationship between typefaces, graphic elements, and color schemes. I wanted to emphasize the “AR” section of each word and add some subtle dimensionality to imply this service’s connection to augmented reality.

Logo Animation. I created the logo animation for a promotional video based on the heart paper plane symbol of SHARE CARD. I played around with visual elements of the logo such as its text and dotted heart shape. The heart paper plane flies along a diverse curved path and I used three different cameras for more dynamic scenes and transitions to combine with the bright and playful music. Also, I put a High Dynamic Range Image (HDRI) for the background scenery to look like an activating AR effect.

Music: Isar (Instrumental) by Jeremy Yang

Sketches I worked on sketches for different card designs while keeping the impact of storytelling in mind.

Experiments After narrowing down to a few designs, I experimented diverse mediums to determine the visual style of SHARE CARD.

Throughout the 2021 spring semester, I created and built three different card products, each with their own AR effects.

Birthday The first concept is a classic theme in the greeting card market: the birthday card. I used a technique called “Iconic Alphabet” where objects take the form of letters. For these, I used relevant party supplies to convey the theme. The corresponding AR effect changes the 2D illustration into a 3D model to deliver a joyful celebration.

We Are a Perfect Match The phrase, “We are a perfect match”, was chosen not only for its sentiment, but because its pun would bring a smile to the recipient. I specifically focused on the composition and relationship between the letters and flourishing to show subtle dimensionality. In its AR effect, the illustration becomes part of the packaging on a match box. Unlike its sophisticated card design, I intended to show unexpected and funny moments.

Recorded Video Message Followed by the AR visual effects, the SHARE CARD app offers recipients to record a video message for the sender. The recording adds AR effect over the sender’s face and background. I built the face filters for the video messages in Spark AR.

SHARE CARD Pop-up Store I created the elevation illustration and 3D modeling for my SHARE CARD pop-up store. Each pedestal has a printed illustration piece and its corresponding AR animation. The physical card will also be on display so viewers can see and feel its texture. Audiences can interact with AR components using their digital devices.

Conclusion While working on my thesis project, I focused on bringing the visual storytelling into design process to help appeal and generate interest to audiences at first sight. It was challenging to come up with a creative and distinctive story and then visualize it. However, exploring and experimenting with my thesis project broadened my design capabilities and perspective in graphic design through the media of print, digital illustration, motion graphics, and 3D modeling. I believe all outcomes were a good first step in aiming for an impactful visual solution. For the next step, I plan to continue SHARE CARD through expanding my card designs to have more diverse themes and further incorporate storytelling. I would like to create a line of cards that are not limited to a specific occasion to give senders a variety of ways to use the cards. I hope the project SHARE CARD can inspire people and create the opportunity to connect on a more personalized level through visual storytelling.