Bon Appétit!

Dining by Design
Perpetual open canvas
for creative minds

– Michael Ong

T2 / Harvest Productions Dining by Design Table from T2 + Back Alley Films on Vimeo.

Footnote: DIFFA (Design Industry Foundation Fighting AIDS) just had its 20th year of Dining by Design in its founding city – Kansas City. I’ve been attending the Gala event for many years but I’ve always felt being in the production/post-production and motion graphics business, that we were sort of on the fringe of the so-called design industry, which for this particular event, meant architects, interior decorators and florists. However, this function has grown over the years and has become the signature event nationwide, in major cities like NYC and San Francisco. As a result, the event now attracts a more diverse group of participants and the level of creativity and passion the designers put into their works was really amazing beyond words. In a recent Fast Company interview, John Waters aptly called it “the Cannes of tabletop.”

Today, multimedia technology has infiltrated every facet of our lives and it’s a big area of focus for our creative teams at T2. Since the gap is now closing, we decided it’s time for us to design a table!

Once we secured our choice partner – Harvest Productions – to be part of the team, we knew we could bring our Dining by Design table to a level that most attendees had never experienced before. What we came up with was basically a blank canvas of everything white: table, chairs, plates, tablecloth, linens, centerpiece and floral arrangements; decorated in a sleek and minimalist approach. We intentionally primed simplicity on our table settings so we could project a perfectly calculated motion graphic imagery onto its surface. Even though Harvest Production has a huge inventory of multimedia tech toys that would wet any geek’s pants, we chose a softer approach in which a single projector was installed at fifteen feet above the table and let the content do its magic. The “technology” seemed to disappear out of sight and we could still decorate the table with everyday familiar surfaces and textures; no foreign machinery or fan noise that would encroach on a pleasant dining experience.

The result: When the house lights dimmed, our table came to life! There were kaleidoscopic patterns on the plates, and undulating forms and lights radiated from the centerpiece, making an otherwise dead and leafless collection of branches wave. The plates and table each had their moment to shine, in a seemingly endless loop of light dance and hypnotic patterns. What can I say? The guests ate it up! We were very pleased with the outcome and would like to share it with the rest of you who couldn’t make it to the event. Bon Appétit!

Credit: T2 – Michael Ong/ Creative Director/Motion Designer, Garrett Fuselier/Experience Designer, Claudia Chagüi/Motion Designer, Drew Bolton/Volunteer Designer, Andrew Kuttler/Volunteer Designer, Derek Ferguson/Producer, Nick Balda/Editor.

Harvest Productions – Joe Athon + the rest of his team.

Let’s do it again next year!