Spaces

I led a team of technical artists and art directors building in-product experiences bridging video calling to the metaverse. Collaborated closely with London-based product team (PM, EM, 10+ engineers, DS, PD, and UXR) to define the product goals and implementation. Worked with external architecture and vfx firms to design immersive environments, which our technical artists and engineers implemented in product. Feature broke the the traditional video calling grid to immerse callers together in a space, provided customization options and activities within the space.

Feature was launched in Instagram video calling as "Spaces" in July 2022. I am named on a pending patent for this technology.

AR Partnerships

I led an initiative to identify, produce, and art direct partnership content across Messenger’s in-product creative offerings. Working with partners like Disney, MTV, Universal Pictures, and musical artists like BTS and Post Malone, we’ve launched over 50 AR filters, backgrounds, chat themes, and sticker packs. Working with product, comms, marketing, and BD teams to identify potential partners who would resonate with our target demographic, I led the pitch process, and led in house artists and vendors to produce the content.

I also conceived of and led a collaboration with Facebooks internal art curation team, Facebook Open Arts, to launch a program to bring attention to visual artists from under-represented communities by commissioning six artists from around the world to produce 360 backgrounds. My team partnered with the artists to capture and translate their creations into the digital world. Additionally, I worked closely with our comms team on our promotion of the project, capturing behind the scenes footage and representing Facebook in press interviews.

360 Backgrounds

Due to the changes we all experienced due to COVID-19, inn March of 2020 increased focus was turned to video chat features in Messenger. One of these was adding a background replacement feature to our video chat service. On a very compressed schedule I led the creative strategy and production of our backgrounds product. Harnessing features available in our AR engine we built the first gyroscope enabled 360 background replacement feature in a major video chat client. To date we have launched over 100 backgrounds, continuously working with multiple product teams to push the technology–enabling streaming 4k 360 video backgrounds, advanced user integration, custom user uploaded backgrounds, and GIF integration.

AR Filters

My first project at Meta was revamping Messenger’s AR effect offering. Messenger had a piecemeal strategy to effect production, and I developed a creative strategy to improve quality, consistency, and creative point of view, leading a team of five designers and numerous vendors to produce hundreds of filters over the course of a year on the project.

AR Games

I led a team which produced simple multi-participant AR games in video chat. The team consisted of three designers, a game designer, two technical artists, and a gameplay programmer. This was one of the first large scale multiplayer AR video chat game experiences, so it presented us with numerous technical and creative challenges. We were limited to only using available AR facial gestures as gameplay inputs, and I led the team to develop a systematic approach to testing gameplay styles and input methods to create an enjoyable experience for users.