Kinfolk National Tour

Starting in 2022, this project took the Kinfolk team across the country, where they created Augmented Reality (AR) spaces where people could learn about the Black history of their city, through viewing digital 3D sculptures.

The team’s goal with the tour, especially at this time in the country, was to expand the accessibility of Black history information to a national audience. Their app was mainly marketed towards schools and teachers who were looking for new ways to teach their students about Black history in times where the importance of that education was dwindling.

I created several illustrations for this project, where many were featured within the app, as well as in print material posted in the area where the activation took place. The team came to me with a branding guide and the sculptures already prepared, so there was a clear aesthetic direction in place for me to jump off of. The sculptures were also made in AR. They had a look that appeared like painted brushstrokes floating in mid-air, in the shape of whatever they have bent the form into. For my versions, I planned to emulate this with looser painterly style illustrations. A challenge for me was finding a way to make these paintings work within a guide that could house some important information, and make sense to wide audience, that all still looked like it belonged with the established branding.

Los Angeles

During the Fall of 2022, Kinfolk started the National tour in California, and the main problem the team came to me with was a lack of a vehicle to deliver this package of complex information.
I created illustrations and designed the layout for the Los Angeles Tour Toolkit; a PDF guide that was downloadable at the L.A. Activation event in Grand Park, to teach you how to use the Kinfolk AR app, as well as explain the activities people could experience at the park.

There were several other activations around the park, like a scavenger hunt as well as a walking tour that took viewers around the Grand Park area, and allowed them different locations to see the AR Sculptures. I was asked to illustrate 2D versions of the sculptures to use within the toolkit. I focused on keeping the style consistent with what the team had developed for the aesthetic of the sculptures, so this painterly illustration technique was used for the remaining spot illustrations and design elements through the guide.

Philadelphia and Alabama

The next year in 2023, The tour continued around the country and the team made stops in Philadelphia and Alabama. For Philadelphia, a physical version of the toolkit was created to give wider accessibility to their audience and create a takeaway item at the same time. Further south in Alabama, a digital toolkit was made again alongside a physical version. Both cities had in-person events as well, where you could walk up to see a site-specific AR sculpture.

When the team continued the tour, I created a different cover illustration for each city’s event. To give Philadelphia a more bold and graphic style, I expanded on what I had available in the Kinfolk style guide and used this angular look to replicate some of the hard-edged nature Philadelphia can have. While pairing it with bright colors and depicting important landmarks of the city, to soften that rendering choice a bit.

For their stop in Alabama, I made an illustration that went back to the painterly style again, at the team’s request. This image depicts my rendition of the proposed statue of Dred Scott and Harriet Robinson Scott that would in front of the courthouse in Florence, Alabama. The Kinfolk team educated me on this campaign, and we decided to highlight this movement with the cover of their toolkit.

I had a lot of fun on this project and It was great to do some work for such a cool series of events!