Park Finder - an interactive art installation that creatively reveals national parks

Park Finder

Grey commissioned Red Paper Heart to concept an interactive art installation that creatively revealed the National Parks that are all around us. This piece fits into a larger “Find Your Park” campaign by Grey which enticed people to find National Parks in their area.

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We created a special sign that encouraged people to both play and explore. By turning the sign in any direction it reveals the National Park it’s pointing to. Each park also triggers a musical tone. So you can use it for wayfinding, or just whip it around to listen to music—either way it’s pretty addicting.

Creating this sign was the result of technical, sound and aesthetic research. The sign is inspired by the forms of classic National Park signs seen across America—mixed with a music box and a modern design sensibility. Inside the sign, physical gears meet rotary encoders which feed information into the central audio visual application. The generative music was based on the kind of harmonic tones found in wind chimes and music boxes—tones that can be combined in different ways while still retaining a musical sensibility.

Park Finder - park rangers on site to answer questions about the parksPark Finder - the sign is inspired by the forms of classic National Park signsPark Finder - the distance to each park is also displayed
Park Finder - park ranger hat detail
Park Finder - badlands 1603 miles
Park Finder - yellowstone 2080 miles
Park Finder - governors island 4 miles
Park Finder - find your park, installed in Madison Square Park
Park Finder - yellowstone 2080 miles
Park Finder - lake chelan
Park Finder - governors island 4 miles

The installation has been placed in Madison Square Park, New York, at the steps of the Washington Memorial in Washington DC and on the South Lawn of the White House. We’re excited to see where it ends up next.

Park Finder - SXSL, installed in Washington DC on the South Lawn of the White House
Park Finder - SXSL, behind the scenes in Washington DC on the South Lawn of the White House

Team

  • Zander Brimijoin - Creative Director
  • Daniel Scheibel - Technology Director
  • Lisa Walters - Senior Producer
  • Adrià Navarro López - Creative Coder
  • João F. Freire - Physical Computing
  • Eric Hagan - Hardware Developer
  • Eve Weinberg - Design Intern
  • David Terranova - Documentation
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  • Sweatshop - Industrial Design
  • OhrenKunst - Sound Design
  • Pink Sparrow - Fabrication

Created for The National Park Service

  • Grey New York - Client