#ROMANOVS100: AR PHOTO ALBUM

Title#ROMANOVS100: AR PHOTO ALBUM
BrandRT
Product/ServiceEDUCATIONAL AR BOOK
Category B01. UX & Journey Design
Entrant RT Moscow, RUSSIA
Idea Creation RT Moscow, RUSSIA
Media Placement RT Moscow, RUSSIA
PR RT Moscow, RUSSIA
Production RT Moscow, RUSSIA
Credits
Name Company Position
Kirill Karnovich-Valua RT Creative Director
Gleb Burashov RT Strategist
Revaz Todua RT Designer
Ania Fedorova RT Producer
Elena Medvedeva RT Producer
Eldar Salamov RT Producer
Ivan Fursov RT Editor
Lilly Kazakova RT PR
Ivor Crotty RT Producer
Margo Tskhovrebova RT Administrative Manager
Denis Semionov N/A Digital Artist
Valeria Fimina N/A Manager
Alexandr Malyutin N/A Programmer
Pavel Postnikov N/A UI Designer
Ivan Yunitsky N/A Tester
Yana Saikovskaya N/A Tester
Helen Rappaport N/A Author, Historian
Marina Amaral N/A Digital Colorist
Peter Nalitch N/A Composer
Aleksandr Skryabin RT Director
Ilya Grachev RT Cameraman
Victoria Milovanova RT Producer
Boris Gorlov RT Creative Producer

Describe the creative idea

#Romanovs100 is an image-first digital storytelling project built on the analysis of thousands of photos shot by Russia’s last Royal family. 4,000 actual analogue images once stored in the private albums were converted into platform-specific social media narratives on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram with accounts on each network showcasing unique format and content. This vast family chronicle is a detailed first-hand witness account of the early 20th century; for decades this part of Russian history was eradicated from school-books and kept in the dark during Soviet rule. Working on this large set of visual data and adapting our historical research to social media platforms allowed us to make history easily accessible to younger audiences. #Romanovs100 culminated in AR photo album which enhances this experience of history learning. It combines the visual language of photography with AR tech to create an interactive history book with the focus on the humane story.

Describe the execution

Our challenge was to design an interactive multimedia book mixing history with new digital realities but to also create something personal and concurrent, connecting two totally different eras. In our design choices we wanted to create a feeling of intimacy: all images are unedited photos in original exposure with the same tints and colors as when developed by the Romanovs and pasted into albums with their own hands. This is why we chose the ‘bound photo-album’ format and complemented it with an AR app to fill the digital gap. The purpose of AR is to extend the storytelling through limitations implied by print, and to allow readers become active co-creators of the unfolding story. The app provides an immersive journey into history triggering three interaction types: - informative (videos, galleries, maps): uses extended reality to tell additional stories through swipeable galleries, AR infographic, short video documentaries rolling inside photos - visual (panoramas, now/then AR images): AR app allows zoom-in on high-resolution images to experience them from different angles - emotional (love letters, colorizations, VR animation art): 3D animations which come to life on the book pages offering a fresh emotional connection to the Romanov family. It creates a learning experience through artistic and playful adventure. The Romanov photo album is a post-digital product due to its trans-media print/AR elements. Extended reality here is a legitimate tool without which the storytelling would lack breadth and depth. Through mixing AR with actual photos, the book breaks traditional print format boundaries to create a new kind of history text that is informative, engaging and interactive, designed to educate and inspire future self-learners.