TIMBERLAND RE-IMAGINES STORYTELLING WITHIN THE RETAIL EXPERIENCE

Together with Timberland’s in-house global creative
services group, Apologue Experience Design Firm has
developed an intelligent interactive experience within
the retail fixtures that intrigues and engages the customer
throughout the store, inspiring them to discover their
great outdoors with Timberland gear, technologies and
brand storytelling.

An interactive test module has been designed as part
of Timberland’s new store concept launched in the Fall
of 2011 in Stratford, UK. Located in juxtaposition
to merchandise and environmental graphics, the digital
experience creates an interaction between product and
digital innovation, transforming the typical retail touch
point into a more meaningful communication tool that
delivers relevant information and emotional branding
to Timberland’s global consumer.

Apologue, in collaboration with Automata Studios, Iron
Claw and Audio, Video & Controls, designed a custom,
open-source cloud-based HTML5 system that is able
to dynamically retrieve remote data and create realtime,
uniquely generated storytelling at every interface
touch point, in every store, at any location around the
world. The systems allows Timberland to add and tag
assets for immediate integration into the storytelling all
around the world in real-time, while being managed
and monitored from a central location.

The interactive touch points transcend traditional
retail models by transforming the shopping experience
into a dialog between the brand and the customer.
The system is uniquely designed to adapt, capture
and learn from each store globally, providing unique,
location-specific content to individual stores and
inviting customers to provide meaningful feedback
about Timberland products and initiatives that can
then be converted into meaningful data for the brand.

This unique interactive system is being tested in key
store locations in Singapore, the UK and the US.
Apologue, Inc. worked closely in developing this
global test with the Timberland Global Creative
Services teams led by Bevan Bloemendaal, Sr. Director
– Global Creative Services and Susan Fraser, Director –
Interactive Group, Global Creative Services.

Check out our video: http://vimeo.com/35639126

Concept, Strategy, Creative Direction and Production: Apologue, Inc.
Executive Creative Director: Tali Krakowsky
Producer: Marissa Levin
Creative Director: Beth Elliott
Art Direction and Interface Design: Iron Claw
Software Development: Automata Studios
System Design & Technology Integration: Audio, Video & Controls, Inc.
PR: Priya PR
Please contact Michel Lu Kumar for more information: michele@priyapr.com

The Economist Pictures of Tomorrow Challenge invited online submissions from the global community of solvable challenges. Participants were asked to enter an image and description that illustrates an immediate problem or opportunity to fix something in a local community in the year 2012. Submissions were to highlight specific and immediate needs where an individual can make a significant difference in the coming year.

Qualcomm, the sponsor of the Pictures of Tomorrow Challenge commissioned Apologue to develop a freestanding media installation that will showcase all the Challenge entries at The Economist’s World In 2012 Event in December, 2011 in New York.

In less than a month, Apologue developed an interactive media wall made out of 24 synchronized iPads.

Apologue collaborated with Automata Studio to program a unique iPad app that featured a provocative interface asking “Who Cares?”, and invited  visitors to browse all the international entries. Audio, Video & Controls designed the system and its seamless integration into a free-standing installation that will continue to be displayed throughout the coming year in Qualcomm related events.

Client: Qualcomm
Event: The World In 2012, The Economist
Location: Cooper Union, New York
Creative Direction + Production: Apologue, Inc.
Software Development: Automata Studios
System Design & Technology Integration: Audio,
Video & Controls, Inc.
Physical Construction: RHG Exhibits

A few weeks ago I had the honor of speaking on a panel at The International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions [IAAPA] for the Themed Entertainment Association [TEA] about the future of entertainment spaces.

The panel was moderated by Christian Lachel, Vice President of BRC Imagination Arts, and included Scot Drake (Creative Director, Tomorrow Land - Disneyland Shanghai), Brian Morrow (Corporate Director, Creative Development, SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment), and Robb Wagner (Producer/Director, Stimulated.)

Here’s an article with interviews we did prior to the panel.

It was super fun and I walked away inspired. These are some interesting people that think about the world a little differently and make a difference in it. Look for them.

Super excited about my upcoming lecture at Gaullaudet University. For those who aren’t aware, the university is the world leader in liberal education and career development for deaf and hard of hearing students.

They were interested in thinking with me about how immersive media and interactivity can change the way people communicate with each other.

Here’s what my talk on November 9th is about:

Our digital world is entirely transforming our physical architecture and how we inhabit it. The seamless integration of emerging media, interactive content, cinematic storytelling, performance, graphic design, and architecture can engage culture in new conversations. These smart, artful, meaningful, useful, and playful spaces could potentially change the way we think and behave. Innovations in design, culture, and technology are empowering us to explore the spaces between words, things, objects, and thoughts.

On November 3rd I spoke on a panel at the Seattle Interactive Conference. The description is below but the most exciting thing was meeting Sir Mix-A-Lot in the speakers’ room:

Motion Technology Panel

Hosted by Dave Rosencrans
Issara Willenskomer - Dos Rios Films
Tali Krakowsky - Apologue Studio
Karolina Sobecka - Independent Designer/Artist

Inventive Motion Content to Enhance Interactive Environments - The Motion Artist Unleashed Through Experimentation

In the previous century, sophisticated film and moving-picture storytelling was largely the province of the feature film and television studio communities.  The digital age democratized the tools to create and distribute video-based storytelling and also enabled audience interactivity not previously possible.  These developments have opened a rich world for artists, designers and technologists from all walks of life to explore and experiment with and new immersive worlds for their audiences to engage with.

Dave Rosencrans serves as moderator for a group of artists and designers working on the digital frontier:  Karolina Sobecka, independent designer and artist and founder of Flightphase; Issara Willenskomer, creative director at Dos Rios Films; and Tali Krakowsky founder of Apologue Studio.  This group will share examples of their cutting-edge work and discuss their trials, tribulations and triumphs in experimenting with storytelling, design, and interactivity in an integrated world with fewer and fewer technology barriers.

This was an AIGA DESIGN ENVY submission.

The Aeon Project, by Michael Harboun in partnership with Dassault Systems, conceives a new future for driving using GPS and Augmented Reality technologies.

Watch the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=UjnbiaY1JCE

Sometimes speculative designs engage the imagination more than anything that exists in reality. This project, for me, is an instance of how an artful blend of the best in technological gadgets transforms gimmicks into meaningful storytelling experiences that change the way we live. 

Simple and compelling applications of Augmented Reality help the driver navigate through the city with minimal distractions, in the most intuitive of ways. A dynamic GPS system activates points of interest along the way, inviting the driver to revert to auto-drive mode in order to delve into rich and meaningful narratives about sites on location. Interactive 3D models of buildings, together with descriptions and historical context become available at a swipe of a finger and the car promises to entertain while waiting at the light.

My favorite kind of science fiction is the genre of the almost conceivable. The kind that you could imagine assembling with the right team and the right budget. The kind of idea that is so tangible and seductive that you can’t help but envy its inventor and can’t wait for someone to put the right team and budget toward making your envious future real.

This was an AIGA DESIGN ENVY submission.

A truly seamlessly integrated physical-digital PhoneBook for children by Mobile Art Lab.

Watch video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQ-oQihxBws&feature=player_embedded

Even as a lover of the digital, it’s impossible not to crave a more corporeal presence for much of the virtual magic in our lives.

Architects still design fantastical places and designers are creating more and more spectacular digital spaces, but finding something that blends the two brilliantly is rare. So you have to envy the PhoneBook by Mobile Art Lab.

What’s amazing to me about it is how interaction design and storytelling is slowly starting to crawl out of the screen. This project embodies everything that I love: storytelling that beautifully integrates traditional narrative with interactivity, inventive use of emerging technologies and a seamless integration of physical experiences with digital media.

Compare any iPhone game to the experience of interacting with something tangible. It’s impossible. It’s like a nicotine patch instead of a cigarette—all the nicotine is technically delivered directly to the blood stream but without the experience you barely know it and rarely enjoy it.

 It’s time for digital design to think outside the screen box. How we touch our media is as important as how content responds to us.

This was an AIGA DESIGN ENVY submission.

I love this project because it serves as empirical proof that architects are starting to think of media as a material with which to build, and designers are becoming liberated from the strange conventions that content need always be flat and rectangular. Here the architecture is the interface, and the content is created in 360 degrees. This isn’t just a bigger TV or a game in the round. This type or building requires a paradigm shift in the way we think about storytelling and experience—how content is mapped; how it unfolds over time; how it feels, sounds and smells; and how it changes over time. That’s design with an impact.

This was an AIGA DESIGN ENVY submission.

An inflatable mobile music hall by artist Anish Kapoor, in collaboration with architect Arata Isozaki, is destined to bring immersive cultural experiences to residents of the disaster-devastated areas of Japan.

In his truly amazing book—awkwardly misrepresented by its trite title—This Is Your Brain on Music, neuroscientist Daniel Levitin speaks of the fascinating significance of music in our cultural and human development, and provides intriguing insight into its source of neurological pleasure.

Our irresistible love for music, coupled with some insights into how important music is to our brains, makes Kapoor’s new project matter more than ever. Designed with the help of Isozaki, this highly mobile inflatable performance hall is intended to serve the residents of the devastated areas of Japan that suffered the effects of the earthquake and tsunami, and bring them free cultural performances.

Initiated by the Kajimoto and the Swiss Lucerne music festival and sponsored by UBS, this type of work is where I would love to see design in the future. Here two cultural institutions from opposite sides of the world, coupled with a financial institution looking to invest their marketing dollars with integrity, connect fabulous minds to design a creative refuge for survivors of natural cruelty. Bringing art to the people rather than people to the art is the way of the new world—a world I can’t wait to be a part of.

This was an AIGA DESIGN ENVY submission.

Photovoltaic strips transform a swimsuit into a USB port for powering digital music players in Andrew Schneider’s invention of the Solar Bikini.

While wearable computing has become a thing of the present, very little of its bright, electronic potential has manifested in anything beyond a fabulous glow. That’s what I thought, at least, until I saw Andrew Schneider’s Solar Bikini. In a stroke of sexy geek chic inspiration, Schneider imagines AND creates a bikini that powers a digital player.

Forty thin photovoltaic strips made out of flexible cells connect to a USB port that powers an MP3 player or mobile phone, bringing music right to your bikini. Literally.

This refreshing and intelligent approach to intelligent materials is certainly envy invoking. What’s brilliant about it is that it uses hardware as fabric, and wildly successfully seamlessly integrates technology into a tool of seduction, protection and power.

Whether the design is perfect or finessed is of less interest to me. What’s exciting is the innovative approach to thinking about the role of design, technology and function when the lines get so blurred that it is impossible to untangle them. That’s the kind of mess that I love to see in design.

To celebrate the series premiere of Cinemax’s new original series, “Strike Back”, Apologue collaborated with Creative Agency BLT & Associates and Audio, Video & Controls to create a  unique interactive experience on the streets of New York City.

HERE’S A FILM OF THE MAKING OF THE STRIKEBACK WALL WITH BLT and AV&C: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UinsNloUUA

Inspired by Strike Back’s action-driven control room, a huge wallscape on 34th Street, featuring eighteen 46” screens, was transformed into a SuperWall of multi-user interactive graphics. 

Armed with a set of cameras, the SuperWall captures movement and reacts to pedestrians as they walk by.

Split among four interactive zones, the SuperWall allows users to interact and engage with the wallʼs digital mainframe to learn more about the organization, its major players, its missions, and to even enlist in S20 using touchscreen and MMS technology.

Never before have large-scale video playback, reactivity, and interactivity been combined into one experience. A revolutionary piece that evokes pseudo military intelligence, the SuperWall is the perfect entry point into the world of “Strike Back.”

The interactive billboard housed at 225 West 34th Street will be actively displaying content for 24-hours a day throughout the month of Augustand will help promote the premiere of “Strike Back” on Cinemax, August 12th at 10pm.

Credits:

Client: Cinemax

Creative Agency: BLT & Associates

Production: Apologue, Inc.

Software development, system design and technology integration: Audio, Video & Controls, Inc.

Creativity has just published our project: http://creativity-online.com/work/cinemax-strike-back-interactive-poster/24130.

And so did Digital Buzz: http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/cinemax-strike-back-interactive-digital-billboard-superwall/

And AV+C: http://av-controls.com/wordpress/?p=126

At PromaxBDA in NY, I spoke on a panel called “The Experiential Movement: Motion Design for the Public Space.”

Design moves beyond personal screens into the public space from hotels to opera houses, airports to concert halls, architectural environments to the street. Hear some of today’s most innovative design and branding professionals with backgrounds in the arts, architecture, music and design as they share their most interesting work, ideas on commercial and cultural projects for public spaces, as well as their thoughts on the state of design and communication today.

Moderated by Ada Whitney of Beehive with panelists Krakowsky, Vivian Rosenthal of Goldrun, and Jakob Trollbäck of Trollbäck + Company.

image: Zach Leiberman’s Eye Writer Project

At the A M A Z I N G eyeo festival I moderated 2 panels about the future of immersive design:

Panel: WHY?

WHY do we do what we do? WHY should our spaces be infused with the digital? WHY data? WHY code? WHY generative? WHY collaborative?  WHY interactive? WHY color? WHY sound? WHY touch? WHY do frameworks have to be open? WHY design? This is a panel that wonders. With panelists Golan Levin, Natalie Jeremijenko, Zach Lieberman.

Panel: Coding Spaces

Peep behind walls made of bits and bytes to unravel and contemplate the art and science of imagining, coding and building interactive environments. The panel will search for some general process ideas, tips, warnings, recommendations and insights into the making of these fascinating spaces. With panelists Emily Gobeille, Theo Watson and Jake Barton.

On May 16th, 2011 I keynoted the Fashion Institute of Technology’s Graduate Exhibition Design program with a talk about “THE PASSIONATELY STUBBORN”.

May 3rd, 2011

Super excited about my upcoming presentation at FITC Toronto with the amazing Branden Hall on our collaboration on a permanent media installation in Downtown LA for LA Plaza.

Here’s LA Plaza’s PRESS RELEASE.

And here’s a description of the presentation:

BLOOM

New forms of display technology, together with innovations in cloud computing and the possibilities of generative code, have inspired a different approach to digital storytelling for media installations. Apologue has conceived a new permanent installation in Downtown LA that tries to challenge conventions, and has collaborated with Branden Hall (Automata Studios) to develop and build a unique, self-choreographing, generative show control system that embodies ideas around the present and possible future of narrative, and its possibilities in physical environments. While this is certainly not the final solution, we feel like it’s a proof-of-concept for many possibilities to come.

Would love for you to come by.