Hasta La Ideas

The Museum of London has launched an iPhone app which cleverly brings its extensive art and photographic collections to the streets of the capital…

The free app, called StreetMuseum, has been developed with creative agency Brothers and Sisters and makes use of geo tagging and Google Maps to guide users to various sites in London where, via the iPhone screen, various historical images of the city appear – just like in the image above.

OK, so here’s how it works. You open the app and allow it to work out your current location. A map then opens showing you your position and also showing the locations of the various sites where you can view historic images of London – see screen below:

If you touch one of the tags, a small window opens up to describe the location and also the date and author of the image – as above. Click on the blue arrow on the right of this window and the image appears on screen thus:

tap the screen to read info about the image

tap again to remove the text from the image and feel free to enlarge it on screen just as you would any photo on the iPhone…

The really clever thing about this app is that if you are in the location pictured, you can click on the “3D view” button and the app will recognise your location and overlay the historic image over the current view – augmenting the reality that the built in iPhone camera perceives. We went to Carnaby Street to see if it worked and took this screen grab of the 3D view function in action:

Here are some more examples of the kind of augmented reality views of London the app offers:

More info on the app can be found at museumoflondon.org.uk/

StreetMuseum credits:

Executive creative director: Andy Fowler
Creative director: Steve Shannon
Creatives: Kirsten Rutherford, Lisa Jelliffe
Account manager: Emma Simmons
Developers: Gavin Buttimore, Robin Charlton
New business director: Helen Kimber
Head of digital: Kevin Brown
Digital project manager: Tanya Holland
Digital designer: Mateus Wanderley
Image geotagger: Jack Kerruish

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