First Person Travel

Design Notes

When longtime collaborator Gabe Smedresman asked me to be a part of his new venture, and he first explained it to me, it was like I was talking to my dreams. First Person Travel is an immersive game company that, for a hefty sum, essentially turns your life into a narrative for a few days. This pushed the work we had done together on Crazyboat to a new level, and I was super pleased when he asked me to make a brand, associated collateral, and in-game ephemera for the project.

‍   I watched a lot of spy movies while doing this project. My impulse was that the brand lay somewhere between a secret cult, a hobo sign, and a shell corporation brand logo, and so I laid my head pretty heavily on how deception is communicated in Western society, which led me to spycraft. I looked at the way a decaying and dangerous world looms large in most cold war spy thrillers, and that there is a promise of mystery beneath the mystery, with an officious and rather omnipotent guiding hand firmly in charge at the top. This seemed to match Gabe's desire for a secretive and exclusive adventure imagination club.

On my illustration style for the first interactive adventure, The Headlands Gamble, I played around with a few treatments before settling on 7th Grade Caper Mystery for the vibe portrayed by both the graphica and the in-game clues and collateral. I think it was successful. The NYTimes wrote nice things about us. 

You can check out First Person Travel here.