Experiential Design | T2 + Back Alley Blog

Experiential Design

November 8th, 2011
by Teri Rogers
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eCamp – KC style

Back in May, I blogged about eCamp (We all hate that name, but it seems to have stuck) , a grass roots organization that I’m a part of – made up of folks from all over the country and from within our industry — who get together for two days twice a year.  Last spring the eCamp group met in San Francisco and the previous fall, we met in Boston.  It was my turn to host this fall, so it became my pleasure to have 15 colleagues here for two days of full agenda items – followed by some serious partying at the end of each day.   That’s a key part of the agenda- and we are all a bit competitive about that part.  In all honesty, I have to say that Beyond Pix in San Francisco  had us beat on the entertainment agenda items.  Hard to believe, I know.

I believe strongly in collaboration – both internally and externally (though that can sometimes be challenging in a competitive market).   Inside T2 +Back Alley Films, our groups and skill sets are integrating more and more in every job we do.

The Kauffman Grand Opening work this past September was a perfect example of that – with four internal groups – interactive & Experiential combined with motion graphics and animation, editorial and Smoke finishing, and Back Alley for the production and shooting with the Weiss camera – working together to make it happen.   No single group could have achieved what we did on that project without the creative input and skill sets of the other groups.

This is essentially why eCamp started; a group of people in the production and post production industry got together and decided that we could only benefit from sharing what we know. We each come from a different market, but the same industry and so, without feeling the need to be competitive, we are able to talk frankly about what has worked for us and what hasn’t — the challenges we face, and our best operational practices. This has been particularly helpful these past few years – as our industry was struggling with the recession and technology advances that were significantly changing the nature of our business.   It has been interesting to see how each business is evolving to meet the needs of the changing world we are all experiencing.  It was also interesting to note that most of us  had called on other companies within the group this past year  – to collaborate on a project or two.

A definite perk.

I was thrilled to introduce my colleagues to a local genius right here in KC – who was our guest speaker.  Stefan Mumaw is the author of several books about the creative process – but he focused on his latest, Chasing the Monster Idea, which explored the difference between good ideas and great ideas, and how to deploy the great ones. Several in the group plan to book Stefan to speak in their own markets.  Finally, we ended our time together by a work showcase – where each company got 10 minutes to show their best work.  It’s always my favorite part.

Thanks to the eCampers for a great weekend.  And those of you who couldn’t make it this time, we missed you.  Next time – in Columbus, Ohio.  See you all there!

May 23rd, 2011
by Garrett Fuselier
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Experience Lab Design Internship!

T2 is seeking a design intern who has strong interactive intuition. The T2 Experience Lab has been hard at work in experiential design– a medium that we feel connects with people in a whole new way. We do a variety of experiential projects from physical installations with interactive projections to web-based components where the participant feels completely engaged. See the videos below:

Simply put, we’re growing, and we need more design collaborative brainpower to move forward. You must be willing to experiment and work within the applications of Flash, Illustrator, Photoshop and AfterEffects. Google SketchUp experience is a huge plus as well!

You’ll be working on real projects, doing on site visits of spaces and helping design the experience from beginning to end.

If you feel like you would work well in an active environment, please email 6-10 examples of your work along with 2-3 paragraphs of how you could contribute to Garrett Fuselier by June 1st. Not to belittle any of your print skills, but we’ll be primarily looking at digital work, so be sure to weight your sampling appropriately.

We’ll go through a selection process, and the interns will begin on July 1st.

February 21st, 2011
by T2 + Back Alley Team
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Experience Design in an Angry Birds Cake

Angry Birds

Great experience design served up in an Angry Birds Cake? Oh yes – and we’re just jealous we didn’t think of it first. A techie dad in the UK has provided not only an example of great experience design, but whetted our collective appetites for all things Angry Birds.

Perhaps the greatest time suck on the planet, Rovio’s Angry Birds app is a huge success. Now, with a working cake in the mix, we’re going to go ahead and call it a piece of experience design.

Electricpig’s Mike Cooper is responsible for the amazing cake, concocted for his 6 year old son’s birthday. Cooper has a rep for crafting imaginative birthday cakes, and it’s easy to see why. Not only do we get to see how the cake is constructed, the look on the little boy’s face as he realizes what it is, is pretty incredible.

With more than 12 million sold, most coming from iPhones and iPads (at .99 each, nice) and more than 30 million downloads of the free Android version, mostly on Google’s mobile OS, that’s a whole lot of popular.

Rovio’s whopping success with this app, generating over a million dollars a day via the ad-supported Angry Birds on Android, probably means a whole lot more Angry Birds in our futures. In fact, the Birds are coming to Sony’s Play Station and Play Station 3, the Windows Phone 7, Wii and even a 3d version of the game is expected later this year.

And Mike Cooper? Well, he can not only bake up a pretty stellar cake experience, he’s managed to throw some viral video in the mix as well. Well done, sir.

February 18th, 2011
by T2 + Back Alley Team
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Infographics, Advertising and Design Strategy

In our book, infographics are not only cool, but a great design strategy. Clients and prospective clients can often process information easier when it’s presented to them visually, in addition to or in place of text.

While this infographic touches on a topic that may not seem all that important, it doesn’t take long to dig down and see that lack of sleep is a big deal – and contributing to lots of … well you get the rest.

As a designer, if you can create a killer visualization, you are definitely showing that you have some serious skill.

But don’t forget designing infographics is an art - and in order to do it well, be sure you’re getting enough sleep.

January 10th, 2011
by Teri Rogers
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Interactive and Experiential Design Abound in Best Creative Ad Campaigns

Interactive and experiential design clearly dominate AdAge’s Creativity Magazine’s just released of the top ten best creative campaigns of 2010. This speaks volumes about the future of design and makes us rub our hands together in delight, since we’re all about interactive and experiential design.

In case you can’t remember all these experiential design beauties and others (that happens this time of year), the campaigns identified by Creativity Magazine as the cream of the crop featured this great body of work:

The Old Spice campaign, which was not only brilliant, but relied on consumer generated video and social media to hit it out of the park–interactive experiential design at it’s most basic level;

The Pepsi Refresh campaign, which again relied on social to support its cause-focused effort;

Domino’s Pizza, which relied on consumer input and social media channels to help improve its brand and turn the corner following a disastrous event;

Conan O’Brien’s Team Coco and their tremendous online effort that included leveraging Twitter, Foursquare, Facebook, web craziness and some traditional advertising to focus eyeballs on the star’s return to TV on a different station.

Space Chimp, the World Wildlife Fund Australia’s compelling environmental message , produced in collaboration with musician Ben Lee;

Nike’s experiential design campaign for the World Cup, which included user-generated content integrated into the digital outdoor production, interactive film and a healthy dose of social media to spur awareness and participation;

Jay-Z’s promotion of his new book, “Decoded,” that was again an interactive, experiential design piece, literally bringing the book to life for fans in a myriad of different locations. This campaign produced by Droga5, also included an online element sponsored by Bing, that allowed fans who couldn’t physically participate in the outdoor extravaganzas the chance to do so online.

Mitsubishi’s virtual test drive harnessed technology for their Live Drive, the first of its kind by an automaker, and an obvious nod to the experiential design decade we have entered;

Dare Labs’ Remote Palette is nothing short of brilliant in the realm of app development and its popularity was spurred along by web video and social channels.

And finally, the release of Arcade Fire’s Wilderness Downtown campaign was an example of collaborative genius that combined music video production for the band’s “We Used to Wait” song, with Google Earth and created a musical experiential design piece.

The interesting thing about all of these campaigns is that they typify the massive changes in the world of advertising that are leaning so heavily in the direction of experiential design. Notice how many include consumer-generated content and/or provide an opportunity for interactivity with consumers? And how many rely on a variety of social channels to help spread awareness. And how experiential design is being tapped again and again to allow consumers to be a part of a campaign, not just passively watch from the sidelines?

As a digital media and creative services agency, the success of these campaigns is nothing less than pure delight for us. It confirms that we made the right move in expanding our brand beyond production and post-production into the fresh (and fun) new area of experiential design. This kind of substantive transformation has not been easy these past few years – new jobs and new people replacing the old model – lots of change can be stressful for sure. So it’s nice to end the year with news like this that lets us know that we are in a good position as we start 2011. Here’s wishing all of us in this battered industry a prosperous new year!