About
A thesis, in the shape of a friend
Alero is a final project for a masters degree in design — a prototype exploring how loneliness, creativity, and connection can live inside a small interactive object: an imaginary friend you build yourself.
This site is both the introduction to the concept and the entrance to the working prototype. Upload a 3D model, or borrow one already made, and step through a short experience that ends with three postcards from places your friend imagined for you.
The brief
Inside the exhibition
Alero doesn’t only live on a screen. The thesis brief imagines it as a three-room physical exhibition, mapped directly onto the app’s own journey: visitors create, then journey, then connect — moving through space the same way they move through the three screens.
Room 1 — Arrival
A round table under a single hanging light, six seats, and three framed panels on the wall walking visitors through what they're about to do — the same three steps the app itself follows.
Room 2 — The Journey
Four walls carry one story in four parts: a welcoming text, a short film, a page to read, and a wall of abstract, static-like graphics. Visitors sit on floor cushions while soft ambient chatter plays underneath, entering directly from Room 1.
Room 3 — Together
A shared wall of postcards grows with every visitor: connect your phone, and your friend's journey joins everyone else's on the screen — the exhibition's version of “follow your friend's steps, and connect with others.”
Made by
Angela Velasquez
Status
Prototype — built for exhibition, not production.