User Research, Information Architecture, Wireframe, Adobe xd
User Research, Information Architecture, Wireframe, Adobe xd
Hannah Riley
UX & Product Designer
Design a Bug Home
2025
A design activity video and animation that focuses on learning about bugs in your local environment and designing a home for nature's tiniest architects.
Part of Design Around Us, design activity video series from Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.
Role: Illustration, animation, film, and content creation.
Audience and Goals
Grades: 2-4, Ages: 7-10
Goal: Create a playful, hands-on activity that can be done at home or in a class-room setting that builds observation and prototyping skills through encouraging students to explore the role of insects in their local environment.
Animation compilation
Storyboarding and medium direction
After research it felt most effective to have this activity be shown in film and animation. Film to best demonstrate how-to steps and see a real person engage with the environment. Then using animation to capture the liveliness of insects and clearly explain their roles in the environment as opposed to static images or limitations to access of real footage.
Visual style
Key words: Playful, youthful, texture, colour
I was inspired by artist and illustrator Clover Robin, who paints colored and patterned swatches then cuts out shapes to create beautiful nature illustrations. Their cut out and collage approach captured the youthful and textured look I wanted to apply to my animation.
Sketches and image references
I gathered photos I took of various wildflowers and weeds in the Northeast and then drew them in loose shapes and silhouettes that would then be digitally traced later.
Digital illustration
Bugs and plants were digitally illustrated, and then sourced textures and water color backgrounds were layered on top to create gradients, depth and texture.
Each plant, rock, and flower was then layered into a digital collage.
