CLIENT: immersionED
CONSULTANT: Erik Evensen
ART DIRECTOR: Dr. Andrew Williams

I consulted with ImmersionED's consulting lead Designer and Art Director, design historian & digital game producer Andrew Williams, PhD on 2D Assets and UI design for a series of educational digital games on colonial Boston. For Episode II: The Boston Massacre, trade signs were created to help embellish the buildings in the large outdoor environment of King Street, Boston, in the 1770s. Each sign was created for broad compatibility allowing quick construction in the game engine, including randomization with sign layout generation.

The approach of this project was to be as reconstructive as possible. However, few artifacts from the colonial Boston buildings surrounding the Old State House (houses, coffee shops, dry goods stores, oyster houses, book binders, printers, taverns) still exist, making true accuracy difficult, and as a navigational tool, the signs had to be impactful enough to be read from the player's perspective on the street. Reference was taken from early American and contemporaneous British art and folk art, trade cards and proprietor names from historic Boston businesses, and Elfreth's Alley in Philadelphia, PA. Sign typography and imagery are based on hand-lettering from antique and reconstructed signs, trade cards, and broadsheets from both early America and the UK. A late 1800s hand-painted coat of arms representing George III was repurposed for the Royal Exchange Tavern, one of the major locations for gameplay events.

in-game views of King Street trade signs, applied

in-game end screen design

Title design for each episode
in the American Revolution series