The Misfit Flower

Project Overview

✅Project Type: AR-enhanced illustrated book

🎯Audience: Children aged 4–7 and their caregivers

💡Goal: Foster emotional intelligence through narrative-based play

🔧Tools: Procreate, A-Frame, MindAR, Calligraphr

“What if storytime could gently guide children to name their feelings—without interrupting the flow of the story?”

Problem & Design Challenge

Problem Statement:
Young children often struggle to name and understand emotions. While storytime is rich with emotional content, few tools guide caregivers to make that space emotionally reflective without feeling forced or awkward.

Design Goals:

  • Maintain emotional authenticity

  • Support—not distract from—the caregiver-child bond

  • Make AR intuitive, optional, and backgrounded

  • Use character design and gestures to evoke feelings gently

Design Process

✏️ Illustration & Visual Language

  • Show a grid of iterative sketches of Aksie, Luma, Boing

  • Add annotation callouts: “gesture conveys shyness”, “color palette inspired by sadness and growth”

  • Show before/after evolution of a character to demonstrate iteration

🔠 Typography

  • Include a sample of your custom display font and explain how it reinforces the handmade, emotional tone

AR Integration

🌼 Marker📲 Interaction

Aksie in the field: Soft breathing animation + whisper voice prompt: “Have you ever felt like you didn’t fit in?

”Boing hiding Short hop animation + prompt: “What helps you feel safe?”

Design Choices:

  • No app download

  • AR appears only briefly, then fades back into story

  • All prompts are optional and non-verbal when needed

Consider a video screen recording of the AR flow — from camera scan to interaction to return to story.

Reflection

“The Misfit Flower invites quiet emotional co-regulation—where AR becomes a relational tool, not a novelty.”

  • Highlight how this project sits at the intersection of developmental psychology, illustration, and emerging tech

  • Include a quote or note from a parent, educator, or test user (even informal)

A quiet AR-enhanced storybook for growing empathy through shared emotional reflection.