“We wanted to tell it like a story, through a timeline that spans throughout the whole process.”

Partnering up with our friends Flatlight Films, Buena and Jussi Solja we produced a fresh and modern website for Viking Line’s new ferry, M/S Viking Grace. We wanted to present it like a story, through a website which follows the process from the first cut of steel to the maiden voyage. The story is laid out on a timeline, making it easy to navigate and perceive the whole story.

The content of the website consists of blogs, videos, interactive campaigns, competitions and live streams. Website offers a unique possibility for anyone to peak inside the process of building a ship piece by piece. It was possible to follow how the interior design and building evolved, how the new environmentally friendly technologies were installed and how these technologies work for the benefit of the environment. Ship’s Captain Henrik Grönvik and Cruise manager Johanna Molin were active bloggers all through the building process, giving insight and personal perspective to the process.

Public was also invited to participate in the building process via competitions and votings. One of the most succesful competitions was the naming contest where people were encouraged to suggest a name for the vessel. Naming contest turned out to be a major success as M/S Viking Grace was picked among thousands of name suggestions. Live streams also turned out to be very popular among fans. Major events such as the launch and the christening of the ship were shown live via web stream on the website.

Viking Grace Facebook pages were created as soon as the ship had gotten a name. Also new channels for both Youtube and Vimeo were opened to support the building, development and marketing of the ship.

“Viking Line was very delighted with our work as the digital design influenced heavily the graphic look and feel on the actual ship as well.”

We were responsible for the visual design of the website as well as the technical design and development. When the ship was actually ready to sail, we had gained 22 000 active Facebook fans, had reached over 220 000 video views and almost 400 000 cruise tickets were already sold. Viking Line was very delighted with our work as the digital design influenced heavily the graphic look and feel on the actual ship as well.

With its Liquefied Natural Gas powered engines, hydrodynamically optimized hull design and new soundproofing technology, M/S Viking Grace is currently the greenest and quietest ferry in the Baltic Sea and in the world. The most modern technology is used in all the areas of M/S Viking Grace starting with its engines and propulsion system to the high-speed wireless internal network used to keep the passengers informed and entertained.

The maiden voyage of M/S Viking Grace set sail from Turku, Finland on January 13th, 2013.

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“The new showreel features the track ‘Magic and Fire’ by Brave Baby.”

The main concept behind the new site was to take the blog-like-feel of the old site and to take it a bit further. The new sites is visually as rich, but also offers people the possibility to get more information about us and our projects. Visitor can either scroll through the site to get a quick glimpse of our work, or if interested dig deeper into the content.

The crossed flags stand for a new found land. For this new land, we produced the visuals for business cards and other media. We also produced a set of promo photos with a theme inspired by vintage exploration and the great Sir Edmund Hillary. The black and white photos by Aki-Pekka Sinikoski of KOREA.

The showreel features the track Magic and Fire by Brave Baby. You can also find them on Spotify!

“We designed all parts of the digital experience to have a distinct and unifying graphic feel to them.”

Loaded with digital displays in all public spaces, TV’s in every cabin and wirelesss network accessible from every part of the ship, M/S Viking Grace was a dream canvas for building a unique digital onboard presence to complement and enhance the passenger experience. We designed all parts of the digital experience to have a distinct and unifying graphic feel to them. All the parts complement each other and make information easily accessible anywhere onboard.

Digital signage

As the digital signage is the most visible digital platform onboard, it was designed to follow the ships fundamental design principles. In contrast with previous ferries, Viking Line wanted to emphasize the nature and archipelago as part of the travel experience. This is apparent in the basic layout of the ship – the public areas and restaurants are located at the sides by the large windows. We wanted to expand this idea and brought the same aesthetics to the digital signage. For example, the general cruise information is presented with scenery from the archipelago and from different locations along the route. The outdoor visuals were also designed to change with every season. We also designed different styles of footage to set the right tone for the restaurants, bars and clubs onboard the ferry.

We wanted to make the space more alive and dynamic and also utilize the possibilities of digital platform by incorporating slow motion video as a background for all the content. The slow motion is like a wallpaper, it creates a certain mood without being too distracting for readability. To control the composition of moving image and graphical content we used a dynamic diagonal partitioning of the screen-area which can be adjusted according to quantity and style of the content on a particular display. Our friends at Flatlight Films produced all the slow motion video for the displays.

IPTV

All the passenger cabins on board M/S Viking Grace have IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) installed. In addition to numerous TV channels, these TV’s offer a wide package of information about the vessel. Everything form safety information to spa, entertainment, bars, clubs and restaurant info. We created the visual style for the IPTV in line with rest of the digital experience.

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“We were chosen to build and illustrate several data visualization graphs and animations derived from the results of their analysis.”

Helsinki was the holder of World Desing Capital status in 2012 and the presence of the status was very visible in Helsinki throughout the year. IBM Finland performed statistical time series analysis on the impact of WDC 2012 for traveling in Helsinki. We were chosen to build and illustrate several data visualization graphs and animations derived from the results of their analysis.

Helsinki was also chosen as the only Nordic city to participate in IBM’s Smarter Cities Challenge programme where IBM contributes the time and expertise of their top experts from different business units and geographies to make the city smarter and more effective. This programme was executed in Helsinki as part of the WDC 2012 programme.

To illustrate the magnitude of both World Design Capital and Smarter Cities Challenge worldwide, we also designed and produced a large-scale animated wallpaper for the IBM panel event in Helsinki.

“EARS needed a system where they could feed content indenpendently, not needing to worry about the graphics, layout or code behind the page.”

Europe Asia Roundtable Sessions (EARS) wanted a simple, yet stylish online presence to support and promote their events around the globe. Central goal of the project was to design easy-to-cope, elegant, functional site with a dynamic yet simple content management system.

The main EARS visual identity was created by our friends at Kasino Creative Studio. Being long time fans of their work in the publishing industry, it was a delightful experience for us to combine forces with them and come up with this online publication.

Content is primarily produced at the EARS events. EARS staff interview interesting participants at the events and edit that material into articles combining text, video and photographs.

EARS needed a system where they could feed content indenpendently, with bare editorial skills, not needing to worry about the graphics, layout or code behind the page. Therefore the layout of the articles is highly standardized leaving very limited options to editors. This way the graphic layout does not suffer, no matter who is feeding the content. All the content elements both at the front page and at the article view are dynamic. Worpress is an ideal platform for web publishing site like EARS. Combined with careful website design, it frees our clients to concentrate in producing premium content instead of concentrating in details, such as line spacing or picture positioning.

We also wanted a unique style for all the video content produced for the website. Therefore concurrently with the actual website design, the video interview style for the EARS video was designed. For this purpose we produced unique and unifying animated graphics for the video usage and design of the overall video shooting style, using mid-shot camera angle and custom EARS microphone in the picture.

“Working day becomes infinite!”

Unreported employment is a matter of dispute even in small scale, such as working overtime without compensation. Federation of Professional and Managerial Staff (YTN) wanted to raise awareness about this issue with an online campaign. Our friends at Halo were responsible for executing the campaign. We helped them by producing series of online videos and TV Ad for the project.

To gain interest of general audience it is essential to design videos appealing in one way or other. We combined Film noir visual style with quirky picture compositions and playful storytelling to add a twist to content filled with data, facts and figures. Content may be engaging as itself, but to captivate and motivate the viewer it doesn’t hurt to have a carefully designed edge to it.

“The feel of the visuals was inspired by the visual style of the collection and the selection of songs provided by R/H.”

We collaborated again with R/H label to produce visuals for their Copenhagen Fashion Week 2012 runway show. The style of the visuals was inspired by the feel of the collection and the nice mixtape of songs provided by R/H. We wanted the visuals to work like a wallpaper throughout the show, creating a common thread for the collection.

Made with Lauri Borén. Photography and video by Karoliina Bärlund.

“optimized for mobile devices and available everywhere onboard.”

Passengers can access the ship’s wireless network in every part of the vessel with any Wi-Fi enabled device. We utilized this feature by producing a whole new website designed solely for the customers onboard. This website is optimized for mobile devices and it is available everywhere onboard M/S Viking Grace. Content is designed from the viewpoint of the passenger and contains everything from cruise program to spa treatments, bar and club information and restaurant introductions and opening hours.

Viking Line wanted to harness all the digital platforms to assist and inform the customers as effectively as possible while spending time onboard Viking Grace. Mobile website plays one important role in this communication arsenal. It is the only communication channel that you can keep in your pocket and available all the time and everywhere onboard.

“We Norwegians and Finns have a lot in common.”

Norwegian Airlines opened their low-cost carrier services in Finland in late 2010. Supporting that move, we produced several highly succesful Norwegian Airlines TV-commericals in 2011 and 2012 with the nice people at N2. Concept was simple and effective, displaying the similarities between Norwegian and Finnish people and endorsing the arrival of cheap Norwegian flights to Finland. The visual style of the commercials was deliberately lo-fi, nostalgic and down-to-earth.

Norwegian commercials received national recognition by winning both Grand Effie and Gold Effie at the Effie Awards 2011. MTV3 TV-channel also presented their “Best Seconds” monthly award for the first Norwegian TV-campaign in March 2011.

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“Dance, drive, play, climb and bounce!”

Together with our comrades at Halo, we produced a TV commercial for HopLop, the number one adventure park franchise in Finland.

Dance, drive, play, climb and bounce! Playing in motivational surrounding feeds both imagination and physical well-being. We wanted to emphasize how visiting HopLop is an adventure. How controlled, but inspiring environment makes you want to move!

 ”We took the readability, clarity and signage of the classic safety manuals and combined them with modern design.”

Viking Line asked us to produce a fresh and modern version of a safety instruction video. We wanted to design the video to be clear, informative and simple, yet stylish and fun.

The style of the animation is old fashioned instruction graphics mixed with modern motion graphics aesthetics. We took the readability, clarity and signage of the classic safety manuals and combined them with modern design. To emphasize the theme of safety onboard, the green background was selected to make the video resemble the printed safety materials onboard M/S Viking Grace.

“The idea was to concentrate on one thing – the swipe gesture.”

Activeark asked us to participate in the Nokia Swipe project to support launch of the Nokia N9 device. The extensive work included transforming the slow-motion commercial into an interactive presentation of the different features of N9.

The idea was to concentrate on one thing that set the new operation system apart form competition – the swipe gesture. We accomplished this by mimicking the user experience of Nokia N9 in the video user interface. You can swipe the video forward or backwards, stop it, throw it, scratch it like a vinyl record or study the hotspots which show off the properties and features of the device.

The site gained huge recognition from multiple internationally acclaimed sources. The FWA chose it as Site Of The Day on Jan 4th 2012. It also went on to receive the notorious Webby Award in Telecommunications category as People’s Voice Winner section in 2012 Webby Awards.

The slow motion video featured in the project was directed by Gang of Three and produced by Woodpecker Film.

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“Warning, this video has been identified to potentially trigger seizures for people with photosensitive epilepsy.”

For Huoratron “Cryptocracy” we wanted to make a video with nightmarish and mesmerizing visuals to match the glitchy and pulsating track. To fully support the track, the video had to leave no breathing room for the viewer.

To achieve this, we went for a combination of vintage analogue effects and cutting edge slow motion. The vector rescanning effects were created with LZX video synthesizers connected to a vector display (in this case a cathode-ray oscilloscope). This type of effect is similar to those achievable by historical devices like the Scanimate and Rutt-Etra machines.

The video premiered on NME and Magnetic Magazine and later featured on many blogs and internet publications.

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“Traditional PR/IR communication can get a boost with web presence”

Zeeland executed Sampo Group Annual Report 2010 online and we produced all the video for the website. Project involved several fun & few more serious shooting days around Scandinavia. In addition to financial information and economical performance data we aimed to tell stories and introduce characters from within the company. We interviewed Sampo Group employees and key personnel to get a deeper insight and add a human touch to otherwise strictly regulated and standardized content.

“The idea was to design the visuals as a flowing collage, like stream of consciousness.”

To produce the visuals for R/H Copenhagen Fashion Week 2011 runway show, we went all out with datamoshing, vintage VHS-look and dived into the world of psychedelic graphics and mixed media. The idea was to create the visual narrative as a flowing collage, like stream of consciousness.

Made with Lauri Borén. Photography and video by Paavo Lehtonen. The track featured is Tobacco – Fresh Hex (feat. Beck).

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