Digital Craft > Content

LESSONS IN HERSTORY

GOODBY SILVERSTEIN & PARTNERS, San Francisco / DAUGHTERS OF THE EVOLUTION / 2019

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Overview

Credits

OVERVIEW

Describe the creative idea

With the power of augmented reality, we were able to rewrite one of the most popular US History textbooks without changing the textbook at all. With the Lessons in Herstory app, students are able to scan any photo of any man in their textbook and unlock a related story about a forgotten woman in history. For example, when a student scans a photo of Abraham Lincoln, they’ll unlock a story about Rebecca Pomroy, a remarkable woman who is almost always left out of Lincoln’s narrative, despite the fact that she played a major role in his success. We deliberately crafted each story in our app to be woven into the existing stories in the textbooks. With the expertise of New York Times bestseller and feminist historian Kate Schatz, we were able to expand history and reveal empowering perspectives that were previously not there.

Describe the execution

In addition to crafting each story in our app to be woven into the existing stories in textbooks, we chose to write our stories in the first person, which is a stark juxtaposition to the distant, impersonal third-person perspective from which every US History textbook is written. In this way we’ve given students a fresh take on the lives of women in history, making it feel as if the women are coming back to life and teaching the students themselves. It’s an intentional way to engage our audience through copy.

Through art we crafted the design of our app to be far more engaging than the typical textbook, which can feel dry and uninspiring. Our illustrations align with what is already attractive to our audience—colorful, friendly, visually stimulating, shareable social content—which ultimately provides a dramatically different experience than that of outdated textbooks, which have failed to change and engage throughout the years. To top it all off, we animated our illustrations so that the stories in our app jump off the page and come to life right before our audience’s eyes.

We launched the app in the US during Women’s History Month, a time dedicated to celebrating the contributions of women, and when the nation’s attention is on the gender-imbalance issue in history. To reach our target audience during this pivotal time, we opted to put our stories where our audience is already looking: on their cell phones. In addition, we took Lessons in Herstory to middle schools for teachers to begin incorporating it into their curriculum. And the best part? The app can be integrated with any textbook.

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