A People’s Contest
Exhibit & Digital Interactives
Client
American Civil War Museum
Year
2023-2025
My Role
Experiential Designer
Lead Interactive Designer
A People’s Contest is a permanent exhibition that reexamines the Civil War through a broader, more inclusive lens — amplifying the voices of enslaved and free African Americans, women, civilians, and soldiers. Located at the newly built museum on the historic grounds of Tredegar Ironworks, in Richmond, Virginia, the exhibition combines immersive media, powerful artifacts, and layered storytelling to engage visitors with the ongoing relevance of this pivotal conflict.
As the lead interactive and experience designer for the project, I collaborated across curatorial, digital, and fabrication teams to deliver an exhibition that felt both historically grounded and viscerally present. My role focused on designing the overall visitor journey, developing and implementing the exhibition’s visual identity throughout the space, and leading the digital interactive experiences integrated into the exhibit.
The interactive components were embedded within a series of five “Year Pillars”—chronological landmarks that structured the exhibition's narrative. I partnered with the exhibit design and media teams to concept, design, and spatially integrate these digital stations. Each pillar combined physical artifacts, historical headlines, and a layered touchscreen interface, offering visitors multiple entry points into the war’s events, figures, and geographies.
In parallel, I led the visual design system for the exhibition, implementing a unified graphic identity across labels, signage, typography, and large-scale wall graphics. This included designing interpretive text panels, developing image treatments, and establishing a restrained visual language that supported narrative clarity while enhancing the immersive environment. The exhibition branding extended across physical and digital components, creating a seamless and emotionally resonant experience for a wide range of visitors.
From early experience mapping to final artifact installation, I helped translate complex historical narratives into an environment that is accessible, impactful, and visually coherent. A detailed case study and process documentation are available upon request.
