Project Brief

The Problem: Cemeteries were once grand memorial parks of beauty and respite that drew in the community on a regular basis. People gathered to memorialize, relax, and sometimes even share a picnic there.

Over the years the visitation of cemeteries has dropped off for a variety of reasons, but the results are sadly the same. Cemeteries are seldom visited, considered by many to be a wasteful use of land, and few people wish to share their neighborhood with them.

Contemporary cemetery headstones offer little more than names, dates and sometimes a small photo, or a brief chosen saying such as “Beloved Mom” or “Forever in Our Hearts” or a statue standing atop. Thus, visitors never get to know much about each individual buried at the cemetery. Additionally, cemeteries can be difficult to navigate and specific gravesites can be hard to find - if not entirely impossible. Seth Godin, author of the book "The Big Moo", describes this very problem below.

"When I went to the cemetery a few months ago for the unveiling of my grandmother’s tombstone, it was closed. On the window of the office was an 11 x 17 Xerox copy 1/10th the actual size of a map showing the location of every plot; The copy was so small it was almost impossible to read and the organization of the numbers was virtually random so there was no way to find what we were looking for anyway. The cemetery people knew we were coming. There were only two ceremonies scheduled that day. Yet, there was no note. My family spent an hour in the rain walking up and down and back and forth looking for the plot. No luck."

The solution

Village Memorial's Legend Tag™. The Legend Tag™ can be affixed to cemetery headstones allowing family, friends, and visitors to locate a grave and retrieve data via a handheld mobile device. With a Legend Tag™, cemetery visitors can tour the historical library that is the cemetery. We feel each person buried there is a significant part of our rich history and should be easy to discover and learn about by any visitor.

Data to be accessed via the Legend Tag™ includes online tributes, personal profiles, blogs, images, video content and personal thoughts, stories and memories from family and friends. The Legend Tag™ hence becomes the gateway to connect visitors to the digital content of each individual interred at your cemetery, thereby conveying the stories of each person buried there.

The Legend Tag™ personalizes each grave with true, accurate and individual information. The Legend Tag™ connects visitors with content related to heritage, genealogy, beliefs, hobbies, favorite sports, family history, military experiences, accomplishments and more.

Inspiration

Inspired by issues of mobility, navigation and seeing great potential in cemeteries, the founders of Village Memorial set out to design a cemetery touring device that would not only make finding loved ones easier, but would also turn cemeteries into interactive biographical museums. As one of the world’s most visited national cemeteries, Arlington National Cemetery, was chosen for investigation for proof of concept. Village Memorial designed the Pantheon Touring Device to transform the cemetery into a place of inspiration to visitors. Through historical information, biographies, and memoirs provided as text, audio, or video footage to be retrieved by the Pantheon through any of the following formats: GPS, GIS, RFID, NFC, and QR.