The Muses

A Case Study



The Muses: A scavenger hunt within MFA Boston designed to enrich and educate the public on the nine genres of art as defined by the ancient Greeks.

A case study for Information Architecture II as part of the Communication Design BFA with Massachusetts College of Art & Design. 

Process:
Week One
Week Two
Week Three
Week Four
Week Five
Week Six
Week Seven
Week Eight

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Week One

Briefed with the task of concepting, designing, and branding a museum gallery, I began this project by first getting boots on the ground at the MFA to conduct research. I had intial concepts of using ancient Egyptian stone carvings, I head to that exhibit first. I documented stone sculptures that piqued my interest. We also visited & documented the ancient Greek & Roman exhibits. I was especially struck by a giant  sculpture, the largest roman sculpture in the US, of one of the Muses. We then capped off our visit with documenting all of Monet’s works. 

 01/23/25


Week Two

In going through my research findings, I was inspired by the giant statue of one of the Muses. I had my preconcieved notions of what a “Muse” was in my own art, but I had never considered the ancient Greek myths of the nine muses. Upon researching more on the Muses, I realized they could be the perfect avenue to educate the general public on all different forms of art. The muses each represent nine pillars of art as defined by the ancient Greeks.  Astronomy,  hymns,  tragic theatre,  comedic theatre,  history,  epic poetry,  song,  dance,  lyrical poetry are the main themes of art that the Greeks deemed important enough to represent with a Muse for each. 

I identified 3 user personas for the scavenger hunt, one inspired by the multitude of children on a field trip the day we visited, one inspired by an elderly woman who asked for my help using her phone while on the MFA steps, and one inspired by myself, having visited the MFA the week prior to researching for this project. Based on a persona, I identified a user path based on their MFA experience, and how I could solve their problems. 

I concepted four different options of each touchpoint: desktop, social media, wayfinding & augmented reality. 
01/30/25


Week Three

This week I narrowed in on what will become my final concepts for each of the four touchpoints that will represent The Muses scavenger hunt.

I decided to combine the augmented reality and wayfinding touchpoints into an AR wayfinding experience. 

The social media solution will be a campaign on behalf of the MFA Boston documenting each muse, one per week, over the course of nine weeks that the scavenger hunt will be running. I would post works in the MFA collection related to each genre of art that each muse personifies. This will educate the public on many unique kinds of art over the course of the nine weeks.

The desktop solution will be a combination of the two, with links to the MFA app to access the scavenger hunt, along with information about the scavenger hunt, an interactive map, and information about each piece highlighted in the scavenger hunt upon completion of the hunt. 

02/06/25


Week Four

I began dialing in the touch points for the final deliverables. I began creating the assets I was going to need for the video, and the assets I was going to need for the augmented reality aspect. I created 3D gold renders of a symbol for one fo the muses that I will use in the video, and began prototyping an “MFA App” on figma that I will use during filming of the video. 

I made a rough storyboard, and script as a guideline of how I envision the video. I’d like it to be  a promo video, as if the MFA created it as a promotional advertisement for the new muses scavenger hunt. 



34/98/5973


Week Five

I went to the MFA to begin to gather some footage, mostly B-roll, and ventured around the MFA to plan out the pieces I would include in the scavenger hunt. I wanted to find relevant pieces for each genre of art, and also make a path through the museum that would give one a broad exposure to the different art within the museum. 


 





02/13/2025


Week Six

I edited my script & storyboard slightly, as well as designing and implementing my final augmented reality wayfinding solution. I decided on an AR arrow, that leads one around the museum to each piece of the scavenger hunt. 

I designed it in illustrator, added gold texture, and then put it the 3D .gltf file into Aero, where I added motion interactions. 

I got more footage at the MFA, some shots of the pieces in the scavenger hunt, and first draft footage of a user (myself) interacting with the wayfinding. Most importantly I got footage of the AR solution, and edited together a rough draft of the final video as a guideline for the final. 

I also began designing my first draft of the desktop solution, which stumped me. I was in the mental rut of working within the MFA website, which was not the best solution. I ended up not using any of the work I did for that in these weeks. 

02/20/2025


Week Seven

I went back to the MFA to get my final footage. Francis and I went to help each other record our final shots. 

I began editing the final cut of the video, as well as worked on trying to finalize my mobile figma screens for the app flow. I was stumped on the desktop solution, and the mobile solution and needed insight from critique, I was not happy with either solution. 


02/27/2025


Week Eight

I edited the final cut of the video, and finalized the sctructure of the video, sourcing music and making sound effects. 

After a struggle with the mobile &desktop solutions, I did my best to get them to a point I was satisfied with, that was a unique branding mostly outside the MFA brand guidelines. I did use their typeface Garnett, as I needed a typeface that was less stylized as my greek inspired typeface for ‘The Muses’ word mark. 

I also finalized my figma screens, getting some interactive animations on the desktop solution, as well as making the desktop solution fit more in the design system I had set up with the mobile app. I redid some of my figma mouse acting, and was able to cut together a final video. 
 
I experimented with Blender, to no avail. I wanted a clip of a rotating 3D icon for the desktop, but I will have to figure that out after this assignment is due, Blender would crash every time I exported the animation. 

03/12/2025