Vu Family Map
An opportunity to revisit an old project and reflect on personal growth and improvement
In my junior year of college, we were tasked with creating a way-finding creative piece for our Environmental Design course. I decided to create an incredibly personal project to document my family’s incredible collective story on how they immigrated to the country, showing every step of their individual journeys.
Years later, I ventured to revisit this project to better reflect the true essence of my family and challenge myself to meet my skills as a designer where they had grown since the first iteration of the interactive map. This project is a continuous work-in-progress, with ongoing efforts to compile and archive the details of my family’s legacy.
Where It All Started
When I first created this project, the intention was to show all of the places each family member had lived, loved, and lost throughout their journeys. The original design was arguably a bit dated and clunky, but the idea behind it was genuine, capturing the incredible stories of my family and their lives throughout their time in these places.
Reimagining of a Family Legacy
After having worked in the industry for several years, slowly building up my courage and confidence as a designer, I revisited this old college project in an effort to honor the original idea in an elevated and modern way. I took the opportunity to completely redesign the visual design by exploring new typefaces, color palettes, and UI elements that felt more aligned with my culture and my family’s essence. This exercise challenged me to rethink the format of the map and encapsulate what aspects truly mattered the most.
An Updated Experience
Once I finalized the updated look-and-feel, I set about reworking the interface in a more intuitive and dynamic layout. This included more room for anecdotal information, associated images, and context for each step of the family member’s journey. The color treatment closely correlated with the maternal or paternal side of the family, indicating which information you were currently viewing. Faces and identifying information has been kept largely private at the request of my family members, but I believe the core of the narrative still remains.
Work-In-Progress
As is the case with efforts of this nature, I am challenged with compiling and archiving as much information as I can. Some stories have very little assets to work with or can be difficult to wrangle the most accurate information to include. This process continues to start-and-stop and I hope to one day complete this project in its entirety. In the meantime, click below to see a shot of it featured in The New York Times, as a shoutout from my brother, Kim Vu, and his interpretation of the same prompt in crossword form.