TrademarkVision AR exhibit
Experience design, graphic design, animation
The International Trademark Association (INTA) hosts a 5-day annual meeting where 10,000+ IP professionals and government bodies gather to share their expertise and collaborate on global brand protection policies and actions.
In 2018, I joined the TrademarkVision team to showcase the world's first AI-powered image recognition technology for trademarks, at the International Trademark Association conference held in Seattle.
The goal of the installation was to celebrate the launch of a new product, develop brand recognition and attract passersby into the TrademarkVision booth so representatives could conduct a demonstration of the technology.
New experiences for an industry
The interactive experience aimed to gamify the trademark examination process in a simple and fun way, using augmented reality. The format provided a light hearted break from some of the events happening in the arena, involving intellectual property law. Being an intellectual property and legal conference, this experience was one-of-a-kind as other booths had not offered technology and game play ever before.
I co-designed the game and booth and took a holistic approach to create a seamless experience. The AR game, built in collaboration with ARki - Darf Design created an environment where people could engage with the TrademarkVision booth while learning more about the technology and how it could assist in their examination process. The concept was inspired by a toy gun that required a phone that attached to the "eye piece" and would produce UFOs to "shoot", using augmented reality.
Players held an iPad up to the tower of boxes to see a chair come to life. The aim of the game was to identify an infringing design and shoot it within 20 seconds. They walked around the boxes to find the similar looking chair and were challenged to aim and shoot the infringing design. While some players ran out of time, one champion completed the game in 2 seconds. Players were rewarded with a sneak peak of TrademarkVision’s latest brand protection solution, DesignVision.
AR game
The challenge during game design was to create the physical artwork which was to be printed on large vinyl stickers and placed on square boxes. The computer vision technology, built by Arki, needed to identify certain points in an image to trigger the game to start and render the AR model.
The artwork consisted of "nodes" that showed different patterns on each side of the box. This allowed the augmented reality technology to recognise and render each piece of the game model that matched to the corresponding design and display the game around the boxes in the correct order.
Bringing it all together
Some challenges of this project included organising printers in Seattle from Australia and transporting booth items in our luggage. As a startup, resourcefulness was a top priority so these things were heavily considered when ideating the experience and how we would design and execute the build.
The main booth consisted of two half-circle service bars, hired from a Seattle events supplier, that were joined to make a full circle and would feature in the center of the space. I designed large prints to add branding to the bars, as well as a large, thick board which created a backdrop that sat above the bars and housed the “backstage” of our display screens.
Installation build
Designing the panelling of the service bars on a white background with light graphics helped make the bars look bright when installing the LED lights inside.
The box tower consisted of 4 shipping boxes and provided a cost-effective option for the display. As many items were required to be transported from Australia to Seattle, in luggage, it was important display items were also light and easily transportable.
I designed four sets of large, custom-made vinyl stickers to add visual appeal, represent the company brand and support functionality of the AR game.
I animated the explainer video which featured on loop on two large screen TV’s on tall stands. These were visible from distance and also aimed at attract people to the booth.
