selected work / independent digital experience

blame nostalgia cinemas

i missed movie tickets. so i made a little place to make one, with the atmosphere of a fancy theater lobby and a slightly gothic streak.

make a ticket ↗︎

my role: independent maker. concept, visual direction, copy, and building the experience.
the format: a customizable movie ticket maker with a downloadable PNG.
the starting point: a ticket for The Dark Knight Rises, and missing the feeling of having a physical stub to keep.
status: live independent project.

The Blame Nostalgia Cinemas window shows a printed movie ticket and a title field, set over a painting of an ornate theater lobby. — the ticket maker sits inside the theater lobby painting, so the setting comes before the ticket.

bring back the stub

a movie ticket is a small thing to miss. i missed it anyway.

the reference was my ticket for The Dark Knight Rises. i wanted to bring back the feeling of a little object you could keep after the movie was over.

that became the brief for blame nostalgia cinemas: let someone make a ticket for a film they care about, and give the result enough character to hold onto.

type a title, keep the stub

you can type a film title or choose “surprise me,” which pulls from a list that includes some of my favorites. then you can save the ticket as a PNG.

the film selection gives people a way to explore my taste, while the custom title lets them make it their own. the interaction ends with something they can keep.

start in the lobby

i wanted the painting because it felt like a fancy movie theater lobby. that setting was part of the experience i wanted to create before someone made their ticket.

the painting is Theatre Lobby by Perkins Harnly and Hugh Duffy, credited in the app through the National Gallery of Art. i chose an existing artwork to establish that atmosphere; the painting itself is not my work.

i wanted something a little gothic, with a space around the ticket that had as much personality as the ticket.

make it feel real

the scan lines mattered to me. i wanted the ticket to look like an object, with texture you could almost feel through the screen.

Close-up of the ticket: pale paper with horizontal scan lines, a boxed film title, showtime, price, and a customer copy line. — scan lines, pale paper, and a “customer copy” line make the ticket read as a stub.

the pale paper and printed lettering support that idea. details such as the screening information and “customer copy” line help it read as a familiar movie stub.

what i made

the result is a live ticket maker that brings my taste in movies into a small, customizable experience. it connects the visual direction to a clear action: make yourself a ticket and save the stub.

i haven’t collected user feedback yet. next, i’d watch someone make and save a ticket and ask which details made it worth keeping.

have a keepsake in mind?

i’m interested in small digital experiences that give people another way to enjoy something they love.

talk about a project ↗︎