Organization

No organization - just my crazy family

Role

Designer (August 2020 - June 2021)

Skills

Product & Design

Overview

Storytelling is one of the most important aspects of the human experience. It allows us to express who we are and what we believe.

Stories are fragile and easily lost to time. The way in which we overcome the extinction of a good story is documentation. That's exactly what my aunt and I did here. With my grandparents gone, we feared that their stories would soon be gone with them if we did not capture them. We put our heads together to design a database and digital scrapbook so that their memory would live on.

I love this project because it enabled me to put my skills to work in a way that preserves the life of my late grandparents and ensures future generations will be able to learn from them. I was able to trace some of the lessons that my father has tried to instill in me to the stories in the scrapbook. For this reason, it is one of the most meaningful pieces of work that I have designed.

Challenge

• Boxes of Unorganized Artifacts
• My aunt had a bunch of boxes of family artifacts that seem too important to get rid of, but you're not quite sure how to make sense of - photos, birth certificates, newspaper clippings, and more.

• The artifacts themselves are not as impactful without the context behind them. My aunt knew most of the backstory behind each item, but someone like me would not.

• We began to ask "how we might capture the story behind the artifacts in order to retain the memory of my grandparents?"

• I was also concerned with compatibility. I needed to ensure all members of the family could open the finished document and that future generations could edit the document.

Solution

• Boxes of Unorganized Artifacts -> Digital Library & Scrapbook
• The first step was to organize and digitize everything. We laid all of the artifacts out on a large dining room table and sectioned them by category.

• We then worked to scan all of these images and upload them to a shared library so that there was one high quality digital copy of each artifact. I also colorized each of the black and white photos, so this required multiple copies of each artifact (original and digitally altered).

• The second step was to design a digital scrapbook that told the story behind these artifacts. I wanted to ensure the design of the scrapbook didn't make the people in the photos seem too distant, so I designed framed layouts so the reader could walk the digital halls of our grandparents.



• I went with PowerPoint, a widely used tool, in order to ensure compatibility and accessibility. The content, not the intricacy of the tool, was paramount here.

Impact

• Boxes of Unorganized Artifacts -> Digital Library & Scrapbook -> Stories for Generations to Come
• The physical artifacts have been captured digitally - both their original and edited versions.

• While my aunt still hangs onto the physical artifacts, there is not as much worry about what will happen to them in the future because they've been documented.

• Each member of my family was able to learn something new or see an artifact for the first time because we were able to disseminate the stories of the physical artifacts to family members far and wide.



• This has encouraged follow-up conversations and storytelling amongst family members, further perpetuating the memory of my grandparents now and into the future for my kids, my grandkids, and future generations to come.

Scrapbook Headquarters