A Quadrennial International Multi-Sport Event: Scotland Edition
Creative Direction, Strategy, UX, Design
The future of video.
Bound to never say the name of the event (and avoiding bots finding any reference to that effect), the logo above showcases the Games in which an augmented companion installation was created.
Cisco had been named the official network infrastructure supporter for the 2014 quadrennial international multi-sport event. They created a network to connect 71 nations, carrying all voice, video, and data traffic for Glasgow 2014 around the 40 venues and to the 1.5 billion people who made up the global audience. Their approach to connecting people, process, data and all things on the network was promotionally called “The Internet of Everything”, and Cisco felt the Games were a perfect stage to showcase what can be made possible.
OVERVIEW
Televisions placed on the wall housed static wallpaper content matching the wallpaper in the room, due to technology limitations the bezels still showed, however in future iterations the intent would be for the screen to be a large sheet affixed to the wall, with our information and video simply floating in space.
The “rig” was based on custom configured hardware (two PCs driving a total of 9 HD screens) with customized Chromium browser software that creates one virtual surface out of the 9 screens. Combined with a playback synchronization server and a node.js orchestration engine.
The Cisco platform to showcase “The Future of Video” supports 4K resolution video and is designed to demonstrate the future trends in video watching. The intent is to showcase for the first time, how a high quality, ultra high definition programme can be made on the internet and delivered on the internet; end to end, internet production delivery.
THE TECHNOLOGY
THE BUILD
An overview of the technology, concept and showcase of the final rig in use at the games.
Working without assets from the Games (as they were still being finalized), we needed to move on a design with no real direction. The folks involved were developers and programmers, so was left to my own devices on how to best represent the visuals in keeping with the branding of the Games itself.
Utilizing the various elements of branded content I found online, I noticed a natural pattern of circles in the material; a constant within the showcase of the Games.
DESIGN CONCEPTS
Twitter skin
Facebook banner
Online banner
The branding of the Games and the medals themselves also followed the circular visual thematic.
In experimentation and recreating the circular elements, I began to emulate the main visual to create consistency with branded elements found online, and form the “wall” pattern that would live behind the visual content.
DESIGN BASE
With only the brand colours of the BBC to be stipulated as design intent, the visual layout became one of content display. Focus had to remain on the actual event itself however all related information from current/next event callouts, social feeds, advertising, player information, related content etc., needed to be displayed as well. Depending on the immersion level set for watching, this content would need to change its location and layout in accordance.
DESIGN CONCEPT, UX LAYOUT
Due to the layout of the rooms where The Future of Video was installed, we worked within a U shape; the larger centre portion providing the main viewing platform, while the side walls gave us a vertical area to play with. The primary design became a vector play as there were a number of wallpapers in the various installations.
