#Romanovs100 is an image-first digital storytelling project built on the analysis of thousands of photos shot by Russia’s last Royal family. 4,000 actual analogue images once stored in the private albums were converted into platform-specific social media narratives on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram with accounts on each network showcasing unique format and content.

This vast family chronicle is a detailed first-hand witness account of the early 20th century; for decades this part of Russian history was eradicated from school-books and kept in the dark during Soviet rule. Working on this large set of visual data and adapting our historical research to social media platforms allowed us to make history easily accessible to younger audiences.

#Romanovs100 culminated in AR photo album which enhances this experience of history learning. It combines the visual language of photography with AR tech to create an interactive history book with the focus on the humane story.

Our challenge was to design an interactive multimedia book mixing history with new digital realities but to also create something personal and concurrent, connecting two totally different eras. In our design choices we wanted to create a feeling of intimacy: all images are unedited photos in original exposure with the same tints and colors as when developed by the Romanovs and pasted into albums with their own hands. This is why we chose the ‘bound photo-album’ format and complemented it with an AR app to fill the digital gap.

The purpose of AR is to extend the storytelling through limitations implied by print, and to allow readers become active co-creators of the unfolding story. The app provides an immersive journey into history triggering three interaction types:

- informative (videos, galleries, maps): uses extended reality to tell additional stories through swipeable galleries, AR infographic, short video documentaries rolling inside photos

- visual (panoramas, now/then AR images): AR app allows zoom-in on high-resolution images to experience them from different angles

- emotional (love letters, colorizations, VR animation art): 3D animations which come to life on the book pages offering a fresh emotional connection to the Romanov family. It creates a learning experience through artistic and playful adventure.

The Romanov photo album is a post-digital product due to its trans-media print/AR elements. Extended reality here is a legitimate tool without which the storytelling would lack breadth and depth. Through mixing AR with actual photos, the book breaks traditional print format boundaries to create a new kind of history text that is informative, engaging and interactive, designed to educate and inspire future self-learners.