Augmented Reality Posters Against Cyberbullying at The University of Texas at El Paso

Students of a Graphic Design class, mentored by Professor Anne M. Giangiulio, designed anti-cyberbullying posters for a real-world social impact campaign and then brought them to life using Artivive.  Professor of Social Work, Dr. Yok-Fong Paat also supported the project with her expertise.

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These student designs were created for the REACH Violence Prevention Campaign Against Cyberbullying / Promoting Online Kindness. REACH (Resilience, Education, Action, Community, and Humanity) is a community-based initiative funded by the Department of Homeland Security that aims at preventing targeted violence. As part of the initiative, the class participated in creating anti-cyberbullying posters promoting online kindness that REACH then used for their social media campaigns.

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The student work was exhibited publicly on UTEP's campus across two separate shows:

Fall 2024 ClassUnion Gallery, UTEP

Spring 2025 ClassFox Fine Arts Glass Gallery, UTEP

Both exhibitions were open to the University community and the public in El Paso.

Professor Giangiulio has used Artivive for several years across both introductory and intermediate graphic design courses at UTEP, as well as in her own professional practice. She describes the effect on students as immediate and consistent:

"Students are always amazed when they first see it in action. It gets them so excited to design and gives them an enormous sense of accomplishment when they complete an augmented reality poster design."

For students, the Artivive workflow—design a poster, create an animation, upload, publish—introduces augmented reality as a practical design skill without requiring any coding. It also raises the stakes of the work: a poster that will animate in a public gallery carries different creative weight than one that lives only in a folder.

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