COCA

Art direction, UX + UI design
Company: Sosolimited
Collaborators: IDEO, COCA 

COCA (Center of Creative Arts) is a multidisciplinary community arts center in St. Louis, whose mission is to enrich lives and build community through the arts. In their new building, they wanted to create a dynamic donor recognition wall to thank their many contributors.

The experience encourages visitors and community members to explore and create with their bodies, turning the public lobby of the building into a performance space.

Particles in Motion

Visitors can engage with the screens at any time, using their movements to control the flow and color of fluid waves made up of nearly a million particles, creating a dynamic, interactive experience. These particles represent the COCA community and come together to form the names of donors and important community messages. When no one is interacting with the installation, the recorded movements of real musicians, dancers & performers from the COCA community appear, bringing the screens to life.

To achieve particle movement that was impactful yet controlled, I collaborated closely with the particle designer through a series of iterative experiments, refining the motion each time to strike the right balance between dramatic and smooth dynamics.

A Flexible System

After finalizing the particle movement, we experimented with integrating various typefaces. This process took longer than expected, as many typefaces couldn’t withstand the dynamic motion—resulting in donor names being obscured or wiped off the screen as users moved in front of it. Ultimately, I selected Founders Grotesk, a typeface that proved bold enough to hold up visually while maintaining a timeless appeal.

Alongside the typeface selection, I designed a flexible grid system that provided ample space for the particles to flow around the text. The grid is adaptive, allowing COCA to easily accommodate new donor names as their list continues to grow.

Impact 

The COCA donor wall serves as a prominent centerpiece in their main campus building. It has become a popular interactive feature, with the COCA community frequently engaging with the screens and bringing the particle animations to life as intended. The COCA design team has continued to seamlessly edit names and messages on the screens using our flexible system.