Halo: The Library
Ideation
The final project for IMD 250 was to create a mock up for a museum exhibit based on any media franchise we wanted. While we deliberated on which franchise we should work on, we considered the gaming franchises of DOOM, Call of Duty, and Kirby. But ultimately, the franchise we've chosen was the game series Halo. This was chosen as all four of us in the group grew up with the series and love it dearly. We thought we would make great work out of using this franchise, being able to more easily appeal to hardcore fans of the series. We set out to work on our exhibit immediately.
Having decided on our project focus, we began to discuss how we would present our franchise in an exhibit form. At first, we wanted to focus on the lore of the games and structured the building layout accordingly by game, but we were advised to make it more community oriented, and appeal to the more hardcore fans of the franchise. Thus we moved on from the lore aspects of the games and focused more on their development cycles and displaying accompanying artifacts like concept art. We also wanted the exhibit to double as a space for fans to get together and bond with one another as well as learn together. With ideas in our heads, we began to build our project.
Development
Once the brainstorming was finished and we had a clear set goal in mind, we began to work on our project. At one point in development, we joked about how we could use a functionality present in the Halo games: Forge. Forge is a way to create maps for players to play on. Instead of mapping out our floor plans in an environment like Sketchup, we decided to actually go forward with the Forge idea. In retrospect, I think it was a very good choice as it added a level of involvement and used objects already present within the Halo art style. It also allowed seamless transitions from the editing interface to a first person point of view. It did take a while to complete, having to build it all and edit each photo to put in our document. Our exhibit layout really began to take form here, as we had to readjust our plans to better fit the tools we were working with. While we were working on that, other people from the group began working on other things like our accompanying website and mobile app layouts. All the while people from both sides interacting with each other, touching up aspects from the other side of the project. Everyone in our group was integral to our success, and thankfully we were able to execute our tasks with skill, passion, and coordination.
In the first stages, everyone in the group worked equally to brainstorm ideas and note each other's ideas. When we had our plans and goals laid out, we split up into our own sections. I worked with another group member to work on our Forge map which laid out the exhibit. A collective 25 hours was spent building and decorating the map; the process took much longer than expected, but we feel the content we made more than made up for it. After we finished the layout on Forge, we snapped about 100 images, and shaved it down to 66 images. Many of these needed to be edited to have content, which was my job. I used photo editing software to impose posters and images into in game screens and placed artifacts into the images. All the while, giving an occasional helping hand towards the other folks in the group, who were spearheading the layout of our mock website and app that would accompany the exhibit and facilitate the digital aspects planned. After that was done, I finished up the final document with the rest of the group.
HaloTheLibrary.proj
Results
The final submission was a large document, outlining our exhibit's themes, goals, layout, website plan, and many other subjects. While an unorthodox project, it was nonetheless very fun to work on, especially with the passionate team I was a part of. I learned plenty of things from this experience, including the study of user engagement within a physical space, pacing of an exhibit or similar experience, and floor planning (shout out to the younger me who wanted to become an architect).
Project Document
