ROGERthat.
THE BRIEF: create a final project that represents you and your journey as a designer
THE INSPIRATION
Being part of a military family was a very integral part of of my childhood. After sending my dad off to multiple oversea deployments when I was young with nothing but extremely glitchy Skype and hand-written letters, it really made me wonder how having access to so much technology could aid in that long, never-ending time spent apart from a military parent.
NARRATIVE STATEMENT
I sit there in anticipation, watching the clock turn 1:00 pm as my mom and my brothers and I are circled around the monitor. Finally, the Skype camera connects and my dad’s pixelated face appears on the screen. Suddenly, I am lost for words. The pressure of time gets the best of me and I have nothing to say, suddenly overcome by a weird shyness towards my own father. The basic conversational questions are asked and the basic conversational answers are given. My dad, eagerly awaiting the call seems disappointed with my lack of updates for him and I, sulking and defeated, leave the room as my mother and father dive into their adult-talk amongst each other. How can I miss someone so much yet get too timid to talk to him? We’re only a couple months in. The end isn’t even in sight.
THE APP
The digital application is the center of the ROGERthat experience. The unique factor about the ROGERthat app is that the motifs and atmosphere of the experience feels very physical and handmade.
There is something so special about handwritten letters and drawings from a child to a parent, so I wanted to keep that aspect of the experience and make it friendly to younger audience, while still being relevant to a teenage audience. In a technological form, however, the frequency of communication drastically increases and habit and routine can be formed.
The app gives the user a chance to communicate using many different forms of communication to not only enhance the child’s creativity, but expose the deployed parent to many aspects of the child’s development.
THE APP
The core of the app’s purpose is to provide stability and routine for the child and their deployed parent. The ease and quickness of sending messages back and forth and the calendar feature of the app are both aids to ensure that both parties are consistently engaged with each other.
Furthermore, this increased communication between child and parent minimizes the uncertainty that often occurs when the parent returns. When a child is young, having a parent gone for so long can create feelings of emotional distance and strangeness, which this experience works to avoid.
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THE EXPERIENCE
Beyond the digital application, ROGERthat has a physical experience as well. Letters and gifts sent back and forth during a deployment are always so special and cherished and I wanted to maintain that piece of the journey through this brand.
ROGERthat provides a physical scrapbook of all of the messages sent back and forth once the deployment is complete so that families can look back at the love, photos, and growth experienced and exchanged over that period of time.
ROGERthat also has DIY kits that provide a physical experience to young children, making easier to visualize this journey. One example is the countdown kit, as pictured above. It provides the instructions and tools to create a countdown chain at home.
