The Brief: How can we support the IKEA Inspiration Experience with something cool?
We were bringing IKEA from the suburbs to the city with the IKEA Inspiration Experience in celebration of their 75th birthday. We had the pop-up, the Trivia Game, the food… what else could we do?
Our response: Let’s create an Augmented Reality Time Machine Photobooth!
IKEA, an iconic brand known for its enduring products, prominently features the Strandmon chair design within its catalog. This design, available in a range of colors, has stood the test of time for decades. With a focus on this chair, we embarked on the endeavor of crafting a miniature living room capable of transporting users through the various decades of IKEA’s presence in the United States. The exterior of the booth was meticulously modeled to emulate the original IKEA work shed located in the founder’s backyard.
Our adept designer fashioned distinct emojis to symbolize the different decades that users could traverse to. Utilizing the augmented reality engine’s capability to recognize faces and hands, we ensured that the emojis seamlessly integrated with users’ images, preserving their facial features as the emojis floated around them in a freeform manner.
Taking innovation a step further, we recognized that a complex keyboard and mouse or a touch screen interface might not be the most intuitive for this experience. In response, our creative technologist, Dofl Yun, ingeniously devised a complete physical interface for the Time Machine. For instance, if one desired to switch to a different decade, all they needed to do was pull on the lamp string, eliciting a satisfying click reminiscent of turning on a light. To capture a photo, a large yellow button on the end table was there to be pushed. And when it came to sending oneself the photo, one merely had to pick up the phone and dial their own number. The execution was seamless and almost magical in nature.
The success of the photobooth was such that the client placed an order for two more units. Following the experience, these booths were dispatched to their corporate offices for use during their office Halloween and Christmas parties.
As the Executive Producer, I held the responsibility of formulating strategy, assessing feasibility and scope, overseeing creative tech aspects, managing fabrication, and orchestrating the web development process for this project.
ClientIKEAServicesExperiential / Creative TechProd CoInternal