Client: The National Constitution Center
Project: Centuries of Citizenship

inspiration

The National Constitution Center’s chronological wall exhibit is a thematic exploration of the Constitution – an immersive experience involving audio, video, interactive exhibits and display items. To allow people to explore the history and contemporary relevance of the Constitution in a fun and accessible manner, the Center wanted to adapt the exhibit for the online visitor.

narration

Night Kitchen Interactive proposed allowing visitors to navigate through a rich history of people and events, and understand how they relate to the living document in a unique and personal way. The timeline highlights the key dates and events that mark more than 200 years of America’s constitutional history. These timeline entries, taken as a whole, tell the evolving story of the U.S. Constitution and the continuing role that it plays in American lives. By integrating these traditional narratives from the physical exhibit space into an interactive online exhibit, we created a truly participatory narrative experience in which the visitors construct the story they would like to experience.

design

This vibrant tapestry is a collage of news headlines, stories, speeches, debates and a variety of interactives that enhance visitors’ experience and understanding of the main themes of the Constitution. Beginning with narrated, rich-media introductions to each of the timeline’s 13 eras, visitors can go on to experience the sights, sounds and headlines of the era or explore the hundreds of detailed entries throughout.

interaction

The timeline allows for scrolling exploration, jumping to specific eras and a robust search feature. A series of interactives adapted from the exhibit allow online visitors to explore their voting rights through the ages, listen to opposing opinions of the era, view maps and more. All content is dynamically updated through the Center’s existing content management system, allowing staff to publish changes and additions to both the rich-media and the low-bandwidth, html version simultaneously.