2014 was a busy year for us – so much so that we can hardly believe it’s year’s end.
But here we are: the Christmas jumpers have been dusted off, Secret Santa gifts have been exchanged and the mince pies are out in full force. What better time than now to take stock of the great year that was 2014.
What were some of our highlights?
- Our fantastic London VR Meetups
- Us (finally) launching Reality Tech Tuesdays
- Our appearance in some magazines!
- Jean Trying Leap Motion
- That one time we were on CBBC’s Technobabble
- When we met one of the cutest robots since Wall-E
And we had our fair share of great projects, clients and campaigns too, of course:
Kicking it all off was our Topshop Virtual Reality Catwalk Experience – arguably our biggest project of the year which gave five lucky winners the chance to sit front-row at one of London Fashion Week’s hottest tickets: the Topshop Unique show.
While we captured footage of the show in the iconic Tate Modern, the winners were physically sat in Topshop’s Oxford Street flagship store wearing our custom Oculus Rift DK1 HMD. Armed with a Ricoh Theta, we also took 360 degree photos backstage of the show, an experience usually saved for fashion’s elite. The experience took London by storm, receiving coverage from the likes of The Independent, Grazia, Event Magazine, The Times, The Drum, Wired UK and Marketing Magazine and won us Project of the Year at the BT Retail Week Technology Awards and Best Hybrid Event/Best Virtual Event at the Event Technology Awards.
In March we agreed to join forces with our frequent collaborators and friends over at The Gadget Show to create a truly record-breaking feat: the biggest group of people to clear a line in Tetris in the shortest time. Using specialised software, audio/motion tracking technology and our love for Tetris, we delivered a memorable crowd gaming experience for the 4,000 or so participants of Gadget Show Live in March.
Next up was our participation in Selfridges’ Festival of Imagination. Conceived by Selfridges’ Creative Director as a way to provoke conversation about the potential future for retail, we worked with brands Blohm + Voss and Dezeen to deliver two very different augmented reality shopping concepts from opposite ends of the retail spectrum.
For Blohm + Voss we developed a specialty augmented reality app and marker to showcase a luxury, Zaha Hadid-designed £300 million superyacht. The AR experience enabled interested parties to see the superyacht up-close in Selfridges’ London Oxford Street store.
For Dezeen we developed an AR experience wherein shoppers could try virtual 3D wristwatches from a range specially selected from Dezeen’s online watch store. Wearing a bespoke wrist marker, visitors were invited to stand in front of a camera which generated the watch on their wrist via a video on the large in-store screen.
Fast forward to September when we worked with L3 Creative Projects to create a panoramic HD projection of the views from the penthouse of South Bank Tower in the ground floor marketing suite.
Using state of the art projection systems and screens, we were able to recreate the stunning views of London’s iconic skyline from the currently incomplete upper levels in full HD for prospective buyers.
To top it off, the project has been announced as a finalist in the retail category at the Inavate Awards 2015!
And finally — working with US-based Geoffrey Doyle of GrowShapes, we developed a multi-sensory, immersive AR experience to showcase the still-in-development $477 million Sacramento Kings Sports and Entertainment Centre in downtown Sacramento. The experience is still on show and will remain so until the development’s completion in 2016.
So from everyone at INITION – have a Merry Christmas and we’ll see you in the new year!