Interactive
Lamp

As part of my undergraduate design studies at the University of Alberta, I created this interactive lamp for DES 503 - Furniture Design Applications and Production Technologies. Its overall form came from careful consideration of the function and character I felt was appropriate after intense contemplation of what I value in design.

Interaction is essential in everyday human life. We expect and require our surroundings to acknowledge that we exist and respond to our input; from the mundane such as adjusting the temperature in a car with a rotating dial, to complex conversations between friends driven by subtle social cues, this remains true. This is, to my understanding, why digitally-controlled objects often fail to leave much impact or feeling; wirelessly controllable colour-changing lights are absolutely convenient, but are they better past that purely utilitarian convenience? Do they feel better to use as a person without the real-world use of physical buttons or switches? Due to this lack of reinforcing feedback, I didn't think they did, and so I decided to experiment with this principle through my Interactive Lamp.

The lamp has two paddles that pivot from the device's centre. The closest paddle changes the light's intensity on rotation, and the further one changes the hue.

During the lamp's time on display at the University of Alberta's Fine Arts Building Gallery as part of the 2022 BDes Graduate Show Inner Space, it accumulated thousands of interactions from new users, and seemed to prove this idea of physical feedback correct; people interacted with the lamp to learn its function and limits, but also to simply play and experience the slight mechanical resistance of the paddles as they smoothly adjusted to the desired position and light quality.

The Interactive Lamp uses an Arduino Uno to read the values from two potentiometers attached to the paddles. The 'hue' paddle's potentiometer is mapped to cover the full RGB colour spectrum when rotated from one end to the other, and the 'intensity' paddle multiplies that hue value by its own position to arrive at the final light quality. Outwardly, the Lamp's shade is vacuum-formed from sheet polystyrene and a 3D-printed buck, the wood base was CNC'd out of solid walnut, and the paddles are resin to allow for complex hidden geometry where the paddle and potentiometers meet.

Additionally, the lamp was designed to be repaired if a part were to fail—nothing is permanently glued together, and can easily be repaired with a single screwdriver.

Nerf
Blaster

As part of my undergraduate design studies at the University of Alberta, I created this working prototype Nerf blaster for DES 501 - The Practice of Industrial Design II. This project required a surprising amount of research into Nerf blasters and the hobbies surrounding them: there are global networks of enthusiasts dedicated to reviewing, modifying, and playing sports with Nerf or comparable 'foam-flinging' blasters that all hold unique perspectives and overall values on what makes a blaster good or bad.

My research and correspondence with these enthusiasts revealed that most advanced users preferred competitor products to Nerf, as the company has introduced countless projectile variants, each requiring their own unique blasters to use, and most of which were based on shaky claims of increased accuracy or range. To complicate things further, these preferred competitor products often had their own proprietary projectiles, making 'fair' games wherein blaster specs and projectiles were regulated much more difficult to find, as Nerf is by far the most popular brand.

To address this audience of advanced users, I set out to make a blaster to cut through this complexity and confusion, ultimately being able to load and launch any and all of the officially-released Nerf projectiles more accurately and further than the official blasters.

This final 3D-printed prototype achieves all of the above, launching any Nerf projectile at speeds up to forty feet per second faster than any official blaster, all while being small enough to fit in a pocket.

Daft Punk
Minifigures

As a personal project to help fund myself through university, I created LEGO minifigure-compatible 3D models of the world-famous Daft Punk helmets shortly after their announced break-up, 3D printed them, then painted, shipped, and sold them alongside detailed stickers so fans worldwide could create their own Daft Punk minifigures.

Process-wise, the sculpts began as clay sculpts on a scaled-up 3D print of a LEGO minifigure, which were then scanned using photogrammetry (taking hundreds of photos of the physical sculpt, then stitching them together to create an accurate 3D model), brought into Blender, and cleaned up and made manifold (meaning the geometry could physically exist in the real world) for final printing. Once a batch of helmet prints were ready, cleaned, and cured, I masked, primed, and painted each with several high-quality airbrush paints to achieve a realistic chrome finish.

This personal project ran for just one year, and over 300 helmets were shipped to happy fans worldwide through platforms such as Etsy, where I also achieved a 'star seller' rating with a 5 star average review score.

△ 1993–2021

Turbine
Lamp

As part of my undergraduate design studies at the University of Alberta, I created the Turbine Lamp, a bedside light with a physically dimmable shade for DES 300 – Foundations of Industrial Design I.

This project required the use of a stock light fixture that didn't feature a dimmer switch, and as such I found the light it gave off was far too strong and pointed for a bedside lamp. Working around this, I designed a series of linkages to open and close the shade with a single movement of a central disk, which allowed me to find the perfect intensity of light on an incredibly granular scale.

The lamp's exterior is made from sintra plastic board, which were heated and precisely shaped to form a complete circle upon final assembly using temperature-resistant jigs.

Cardiovascular
Research
Institute

As part of my undergraduate studies at the University of Alberta, the University's Cardiovascular Research Institute (CVRI) was in search of a new brand identity and logo to fit with its core values and principles of making research and information accessible to the wider community. Creating this brand identity was a project introduced in DES593 during the fall term of 2021, wherein about 20 Visual Communication Design students would create logos and brand identities for consideration, with one ultimately being chosen as the final approved package.

My initial concept for the logo aimed to take the 'R' in 'Research' and use it as a reference to build a heart around. These concept illustrations were refined through multiple concept rounds and client meetings, landing at a mosaic-like design to represent the individual members of the Institute combining their knowledge and research into a greater community. Upon completion of this term-long project, my design was ultimately picked to represent the CVRI, and still does to this day.

The logo design is specifically meant to stray away from the traditional 'medical-y' look of other heart research groups, instead making a heart out of mosaic tile-like pieces to visualize the structure and goals of the Institute, along with ensuring that the logo is high-contrast enough to be readable even at a small size, or with visual impairments such as various forms of colourblindness; inclusivity and community are of the utmost importance to the Institute, and to their logo!

Additionally, a short musical jingle and animations were made to liven-up social media and presentation content, bringing the identity into other dimensions to add variety and recognizability outside of the visual design.

LazyFaire
Magazine

During the 2023/2024 academic year at the University of Alberta, I volunteered as the Creative Director of LazyFaire Magazine, a business-focused student magazine that features local stories and campus events relevant to students and faculty.

As Creative Director, I was responsible for refreshing and maintaining visual identity and brand guidelines across the magazine and digital content, leading and assigning designers to specific tasks to assure timely completion of design materials, creating magazine pages and covers, photography, and assembling the final magazine for print and release.

The brand refresh focused on celebrating the printed and student-focused nature of the magazine through its updated, vibrant CMYK-reminiscent colour palette, along with modernized sans-serif fonts and clean, precise typography grid-based construction. The result was a magazine that felt handmade and specific to both its creators and those who read it.

vrCAVE
Identity

As part of my responsibilities at vrCAVE, an Edmonton-based business that builds VR escape rooms for arcades worldwide, I created a brand identity and applied it to several printed and digital materials for sales, marketing, and industry events. These materials included show booths, signage and banners, informational booklets, advertisements, videos, grant applications, pitch presentations, and more.

I worked closely with vrCAVE's marketing and sales teams to get to this final identity, which deliberately adds texture and light through gradients and elements like lens flares and glassmorphic touches (a feeling that elements are physical panes of glass that overlap and interact with each other) to achieve a feeling that these digital and printed works are all physically real. This is important, as vrCAVE's product exists in VR, and as such having these materials feel tangible assists in communicating the feeling of using the product through visual means.

Additionally, the colour palette is adapted from the company's original 'start-up' palette. It gives the feeling of an advanced or futuristic arcade as it keeps vibrant and seemingly glowing colours at the forefront, with darkened purples and blues allowing for high-contrast backgrounds appropriate for both digital and printed materials. These specific design choices allow vrCAVE to exist and thrive within the competitive location-based entertainment industry.

Global businesses within this industry attend events like the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions (IAAPA), TransWorld's Halloween and Attractions Show (HAAS), Game Developers Conference (GDC), and Gamescom to gain new clients, advertise to a global audience, and to exhibit technologies that propel the industry forward.

As an exhibitor at every one of these events and more, vrCAVE competed against world-renowned entertainment mega-corporations like Disney Live Entertainment, Nintendo, Activision, and Hasbro, meaning that quickly and effectively communicating the product and company's values was essential.

During my time at vrCAVE, the number of global partner locations (businesses that made use of vrCAVE's software) expanded by over 150%—from just under 100 to over 260.

vrCAVE
Posters

As part of a marketing revitalization initiative, I designed posters for vrCAVE's VR escape room catalogue for use in the company's over 250 global arcade partners.

Every poster is carefully assembled to communicate the experience offered its respective escape room; artistic renditions of in-game content are presented within varied art styles meant to emulate the look, feel, and process of posters and covers of media general audiences would understand and connect with. Additionally, each poster makes use of unique logos that reflect the tone and emulated time period of each game.

Alien Infection takes heavy thematic and visual inspiration from Ridley Scott's 1979 film Alien and its otherworldly H.R. Giger creature and environmental design. Naturally, the poster follows this inspiration by emphasizing pools of black space to hint at the alien's form without revealing it completely. The textured, pulp-y nature of print technology appropriate for the era is emulated here too with deliberate use of process halftone gradients, emulated print distortions, and a limited colour palette to communicate the isolated horror offered by the escape room. The package is wrapped with the tagline 'in horrifying sight and sound,' which was inspired by the evolving VHS and Laserdisc formats' advertised quality and wonderment.

Ninja Trials is set in ancient Japan, and as such the poster emulates the process and practice of woodblock printing and brush ink drawing. The distorted style and proportions of figures from these ancient works is emulated here too, serving to deliver an intense form of motion and excitement in the two ninja figures, as well as a threatening, taunting stare by the central Oni mask, which ties into events within the latter quarter of the game.

Runaway Train takes inspiration from Sergio Leone's 1966 film The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly, its many posters and printed advertisements, and other western media from the time period. Its limited colour palette and sponge-like textures emulate silkscreen printing methods that were commonly used within print media of the era. The poster's composition also set out to (somewhat abstractly) combine a six-shooter revolver and a steam engine train, as these two classically western elements take up the bulk of the game's contents, and communicate the 'Runaway' in Runaway Train.

Pirates Plague is a swashbuckling adventure on the seven seas, and as such the poster looks to decorative or cautionary illustrations present on maps from the mid-to-late 17th century for inspiration. Players assume the role of cursed pirates who have turned into 'Fishmen,' and must defeat a Kraken to break the spell, which in this poster is communicated through the placement of the ship and its surrounding Kraken tentacles within the jacket of the central Fishman. Additionally, the logo here is hand-drawn blackletter calligraphy that is also reminiscent of what was typical of maps and documents around the time.

Manor of Escape is a spooky array of encounters set within a sci-fi, Frankenstein-style mansion. The poster here is inspired by classical monster books and movie posters, taking the titular manor and distorting it to make it tower over the perspective of the viewer, heightening the sense of unease and horror. Chromatically, the poster is here too informed by the processes that resulted in the classic, pulp-y style of mid-twentieth century printed media and advertising; the tri-tone palette layers blocky shapes together to emulate the look of silkscreen prints, along with added texture and intentionally-placed imperfections. The hand-drawn blackletter calligraphy here too elevates the spooky-ness, and intentionally calls to its association with horror.

Time Travel Paradox takes players from the Jurassic period to the post-apocalyptic future, with action and puzzle scenarios designed specifically for each period. The poster features the time machine at its centre, along with screenshots from each level in the game. Back to the Future was an obvious point of inspiration, so here the poster matches the look and feel of a svhS tape cover with the use of halftone or dot-matrix colour gradients, matching the colouration and texture of period-appropriate media.

Dragon Tower takes place in a medieval fantasy village under attack from a fearsome dragon (or two!). The poster features a shiny hand-rendered blackletter logo and a hand-rendered dragon to match, emulating the look and feel of classic fantasy media like Dungeons and Dragons or Dragon's Lair, with a hint of Jurassic Park to suggest the dragon's scale and power.

Depths of Osiris takes place on the ocean floor with players seeking to uncover and explore the lost Temple of Osiris. Visibility this far down is extremely limited, as the water is so dark and distorting it feels as though players are traversing through thick oil. This inspired the dimly-lit, visible-brushstroke look of the final poster, as well as the otherworldly saturated green light to hint at the treasure (or horror) that awaits. Additionally, the logo's letterforms influenced by Egyptian hieroglyphs, with the Eye of Ra taking the place of 'R' in 'OSIRIS'. Osiris was the god of the afterlife, whereas Ra was that of the sun, making its absence in the murky depths all the more unsettling.

Space Station Tiberia launches players into orbit to repair a defense satellite just as a massive asteroid is set to collide with earth. The poster here captures the moments before the players arrive, with the small inhabited craft's lights and propulsion stream contrasting against the lifeless Space Station Tiberia. This poster seeks to emulate a modern, grounded style of sci-fi found in media such as The Martian, Prey, and Interstellar; the stakes and drama are high, but the craft and technology feel in-line with the current day.

Unlike the previous games, LaserBots is a ten-minute action-arcade game that requires players to reflect and refract incoming laser fire. Given the nature of this entry, this poster embodies its chaos with laser burns and beams appearing to fly through a blueprint for a deadly LaserBot.

vrCAVE
Concept Art

As part of a partnership with a world-renowned publisher, vrCAVE has been developing an unannounced project. This partnership began as a pitch presentation, which then evolved into a full-on publishing arrangement between vrCAVE and the publisher. As this project's initial designer, I was responsible for creating and formatting that original pitch presentation and documentation, and creating conceptual character and environment art. These explorations represent the project from multiple stages of pre-production, meaning the style, tone, and overall feel differ drastically. My work aided in the partnership's greenlighting, and the project is currently in active development.

VR Motion
Sickness
Reduction

Experiencing immersive VR is challenging to those who are sensitive to motion, as tricking the senses tends to lead to face-first trips to the floor, or to the washroom. As someone who has never felt motion sickness, I wanted to find a way of sharing these amazing experiences with my friends and family, and to guarantee the only trips taken were virtual, and fun.

After research and experimentation to determine an effective approach, I created a prototype to specifically address the root causes of motion sickness; this prototype limits the player's in-headset peripheral field of view and anchors them to their real-world position regardless of game input, meaning that any movement of their in-game character is not registered by their nervous system as applying to the player's physical body.

The game is rendered in a circular window in the centre of the headset, and the periphery shows a simple cubic room with a dense grid texture that is mapped exactly to the headset's coordinates and rotation. Containing the game in this window allows affected players to interpret their in-game movements as separate to their own, similar to watching a video or movie on a smartphone; because the 'fake' movements within the game do not extend to their peripheral vision, players can still understand and interact with the game world to the full extent while interpreting complex movement as separate from their bodies, thus avoiding motion sickness.

This prototype was created using a Valve Index VR headset, Unity, and C#.

Ninja
Trials

vrCAVE's Ninja Trials VR escape room released in 2023 to a network of over 250 global arcade and family entertainment center locations. As part of the Product Development Team, I assisted in puzzle, prop, and environment design, 3D modeling and texturing of in-game assets, and sound effect design. Specifically, I lead visual development on the 'Lobby' level, which is the first area players enter when playing the game.

The Lobby serves as a safe area for players to get to grips with their new VR bodies, for game operators to assist in suiting players up, and for a brief story introduction cutscene delivered by an animated non-player character. Additionally, the Lobby was designed to get players excited about the adventure they would embark on, as it takes place at an ornate entrance to a massive martial arts temple on the side of a mountain.

Within the story of the game, players are studying to become ninjas, and as such they'll need to complete a set of trials to become fully-fledged and licenced. To both make the overall experience feel more believable and possible as a physical space, each of the trials can be seen from the lobby level, scattered up the mountainside. This design decision makes the overall pacing and structure of the game clear (ascend the mountain, become a ninja) and lets players take note of points of interest before delving into the game proper.

Each of the following ninja trials can be seen from the lobby scattered up the looming mountainside, which aids in making the entire game feel believable as a physically possible space, and for getting players excited and curious about what lies in store for them.

In creating the Lobby, careful implementation of asset optimizations were employed to ensure performance and visual quality on PC and mobile platforms. These include triangle reduction, asset batching and use of shared image textures, packing emissive and roughness maps into the alpha channel of image textures, and baking data from high-poly assets down to their low-poly counterparts.

Ninja Trials was built in Unreal Engine 5, and is available to play at participating locations on SteamVR, Meta Quest, and HTC VIVE Focus headsets.

Alien
Infection

vrCAVE's Alien Infection VR escape room released in 2024 to a network of over 250 global arcade and family entertainment center locations.

As part of the Product Development Team, I assisted in puzzle, prop, and environment design, 3D modeling and texturing of in-game assets, and ambient audio and sound effect design. Specifically, I lead visual development on the 'Gravity Room' level, the second area of three set in a spooky alien spaceship that players enter after being abducted from earth.

The Gravity Room features puzzles that utilize consoles to control the direction and intensity of gravity, and a Half-Life 2-inspired 'Gravity Gun' pickup that allows players to manipulate items within the level from a great distance.

The alien ship was designed to look organic and twisted to elevate the game's scare factor, which was challenging to blend with clear communication of mechanics to players and performance-related concerns such as triangle overdraw and texture memory limits for mobile platforms. The final Gravity Room level makes use of various techniques to guide player attention such as colour-coded emissive materials, animation, lighting, and sound queues. Additionally, performance concerns were addressed through carefully-applied optimizations and strategies such as Blender's Tissue mesh tessellation to tile and distort low-poly geometry and simple textures in ways that appear organic, rounded, and believable.

Alien Infection was built in Unreal Engine 5, and is available to play at participating locations on SteamVR headsets.

vrcave

vrCAVE's company website was refreshed in 2024, moving from a Canadian '.ca' domain to a global, tech-y '.io' one to help with SEO and global brand recognition. As the sole designer and developer on this transfer, I was responsible for ensuring visual consistency with vrCAVE's updated brand ideintity, the overall user experience and structure of the pages and website as a whole, and keeping performance in-check in respects such as loading speed and SEO.

vrcave.io is intended as a touchpoint between vrCAVE and their prospects as they navigate through their respective customer journeys. As such, business-related information is the primary focus of the site. With this target user in mind, the website leans into a business-first mindset over consumer-focused accolades or media meant to show the quality and depth of the games. Rather, nitty-gritty info like the size of the required play area and case studies showcasing how vrCAVE works for businesses around the world take priority.

vrcave.io is currently live as vrCAVE's primary website, and was built using a combination of WordPress, Elementor, HubSpot, CSS, HTML, and Javascript.

play
vrCAVE

vrCAVE assists in marketing efforts for their global Partner Locations, and an at-the-time experimental method of advertising resulted in a consumer-facing website, playvrcave.com

As the sole designer and developer of playvrcave.com, I was responsible for developing the site's identity, logo, structure, user experience, and keeping performance in-check in respects such as loading speed and search engine optimization.

playvrcave.com is intended to make finding and booking a vrCAVE Partner Location easier for consumers. As such, the website focuses heavily on the quality and quantity of the games on offer, and presents information clearly, simply, and efficiently. Players can check out what games are available from each location, sorting by parameters such as difficulty, length, or release date, pick the one they'd like to try, and then get redirected to the respective Partner's website for final booking confirmation.

playvrcave.com is currently live, and was built using a combination of WordPress, Elementor, HubSpot, CSS, HTML, and Javascript.

bigoray

bigoray.com is my personal portfolio website, and was built to catalogue and showcase my design work.

As the sole person developing this website, my responsibilities include content creation, editing, writing, design, layout, programming and code, and general upkeep.

The visual design of both my website and general identity focuses on clear and precise communication and showcasing of my work; things are kept simple and follow what provides the best user and viewing experience, but with personality and colour to still show that there's a real person behind it all—me!

bigoray.com is built using GitHub Pages, HTML, CSS, and Javascript.

Thanks for stopping by!

Assets from or referencing copyrighted material from Daft Punk, The LEGO Group, vrCAVE, Hasbro, or any other rights holder belong to their respective copyright holders and are used with permission or accordance to official usage guidelines on this portfolio website as supporting material to demonstrate my passion and ability. I, Kyle Bigoray, am an individual designer that does not represent any entity other than myself.

With respect to all other materials: © 2025 Kyle Bigoray, all rights reserved.