Pan Sol is a consideration of how a space tourism booking service might work in an alternate present. It revives the brand of Pan Am, taking graphic sensibility hopefulness from Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Customer and Market Research, Information Architecture, Interaction Design, UI Design, Branding
Completed Jan 2017
Research, Wireframing, User Testing, Graphic Design
Project duration: 2.5 months
The Delta Clipper is shown briefly in Clarke and Kubrik’s 2001, A Space Odyssey. To viewers in 1968, this was a hopeful and fantastic vision of the future, where commercial spaceflight is a normal part of life. Kubrik borrowed iconography and design language from airline travel (Pan Am) and applied it to the time's best guess of what everyday space travel might look like.
It’s important to note that 2001: A Space Odyssey was released in 1968, before humans landed on the moon. Contemporary viewers would have been familiar with the Pan Am brand, and the Pan Am globe logo on the side of the Delta Clipper would have been synonymous best-in-class commercial travel of the time. A modern revival of this brand needs to take this into account, and tell a story of what might be.
Analyzing contemporary services led to the realization that the closest modern service typology that exists for booking something like space tourism is the cruise. A cruise is booked all at once. One chooses a complete trip based on a series of departure points and destinations. Then, once the path of travel is chosen, various upgrades and levels of service are chosen. This basic typology was used for creating wireframes in a way relatable to contemporary users.
The basic site map is simple, and follows the cruise booking service design. These often utilize a tool for organizing trips based on departure and destination, as well as other options. Other sections are often devoted finding out more information on specific destinations, and even the travel vehicles themselves.
The most important userflow would be trip booking. The three phases of Exploration, Choosing Options, and Purchasing are all similar to booking a cruise.
The most important userflow would be trip booking. The three phases of Exploration, Choosing Options, and Purchasing are all similar to booking a cruise.
One of the most fun aspects of this project was development of a modern take on the Pan Am brand, here reimagined as Pan Sol; the next phase of the company, reaching out into the solar system the same way is the original Pan Am began with leisure travel to specific destinations. The Pan Am abstracted globe icon is seen in the upper left, which explorations of Pan Sol on the rest of the image. The white inset lines of the Pan Am logo represent the latitudinal lines of the Earth. I explored various interpretations of orbital transfers in a new, more pure circular background. The thinner lines and font feel like a more grown-up and modernized vision, but share the same lineage. I chose the image in the middle to the right as the inspiration for the rest of the graphic sensibility of the service.
More on Hohmann Transfers hereThe final mockups show a simple, search-forward interface, which leads directly to the different trips that are possible, and some basic information on how to prepare for the trip. The path towards booking is low friction, and similar in many ways to booking a cruise in real life. Given more time, I would love to delve into more interface options in this alternate future, more in-depth testing for the booking process, and interview more subject matter experts on space tourism in general for more inspiration on what may yet become a reality.
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