Reimagining historical innovation through augmented reality, letting anyone transform their world with mesmerising dazzle patterns for 14-18 NOW WW1 centenary program.
Design Lead
XR Lead
3D Artist
14-18 NOW presented a compelling challenge: create an experience that would bring the fascinating history of dazzle camouflage to modern audiences. During World War I, merchant vessels were painted with bold geometric patterns designed to confuse enemy submarines about their speed, size, and direction. The commission aimed to connect contemporary audiences with this remarkable intersection of art and military innovation through an engaging, educational experience.
Our solution to bringing dazzle camouflage to life lay in augmented reality. While AR experiences today seamlessly blend digital content with the real world through platforms like Apple’s ARKit and Android’s ARCore, we were attempting to achieve this same level of immersion before these industry standards existed.
This technical ambition came with significant challenges. Without the established frameworks that developers rely on today, our team had to build much of the underlying technology from the ground up. This pioneering approach positioned us at the forefront of AR development, implementing solutions that would later become industry paradigms.
The combination of pioneering markerless AR and delivering it through Unity 3D created a unique set of challenges. What should have been an intuitive, immersive experience became a carefully guided journey. Our vision of seamless interaction had to adapt to the reality of teaching users how to interact with adopting a new technology.
Building our application in Unity, primarily a 3D game development platform, introduced additional complexity. While Unity excelled at delivering AR experiences, creating traditional app interfaces required us to think in three dimensions—placing 2D designs in a 3D space to create what users would recognize as familiar app screens.
Despite the technical challenges, the final experience captured the bold, geometric beauty of dazzle camouflage patterns. Users created their own interpretations of these historic designs.
The project garnered significant attention from technology and arts press, including The Guardian, Wired, Gizmodo and BBC Online. Who recognised both its innovative approach to AR and its creative interpretation of historical education. Beyond the technical achievement, Dazzle demonstrated how emerging technologies could bridge the gap between historical understanding and contemporary engagement. This fusion of art, history, and cutting-edge technology set a precedent for future digital heritage projects.
