BlackBerry 10: Codeface

For the introduction of their latest operating system, BlackBerry commissioned us to design a loop-able, ambient video featuring their brand evangelists. We took their head shots and processed them into an abstract mosaic of letters, numbers and code snippets using Cinema 4D.

The animation was inspired by Tobias Muthesius’ and Juliette Champain’s project “Face to Face”.

The original piece is silent, but for your listening pleasure we have set it to byetone’s “telegramm”. Check it out here.

Molson M, Liquid Art Murals

Felix worked with BBDO Toronto on Molson’s ‘Liquid Art’ campaign for their Molson M brand. The challenge was to continue the flow of a beer splash over a dozen different billboard sizes across Canada. It’s always great to see your work in large scale, but it doesn’t get much bigger than the 60′ x 80′ Montreal site.

Here’s a look a the evolution of the artwork. Earlier versions payed homage to pop-art graffiti, before we settled on a playful Carnaby Street vibe.

Fixmo: Mobile Risk Management

Who would have thought that bringing your own phone to work could be a problem for corporate security? Fixmo did, and have developed software that allows companies to manage their employees mobile devices and protects them from viruses, hacking and sensitive data loss.

When we were asked to redesign their website, we faced the challenge of visually conceptualizing mobile security and technology management in an engaging way. We felt that the best way to accomplish this was to bring a clean, yet graphically strong and memorable approach to the site.

Instead of using stock photos of people talking on cell phones, we took the banners in a zoological direction. Visceral images of snakes, scorpions, and alligators represent the security threat here.

To break up the information-heavy pages, we designed bold, colourful graphics taking cues from 1960s geometric posters by Paul Rand and Otl Aicher’s Olympic iconography. These deconstructed red shapes combined with black and white photography and a minimal white / beige background, make the key ideas easily communicable and memorable.

Quench Mobile App

Quench is an drinking water finder we designed and built for the TVO series The Water Brothers.

Torontonians can use Quench to find water fountains and official water refill locations from their iPhone, iPad, Android or BlackBerry device. Information for each water source is provided, including address and directions, ratings and comments from other users. Locations can also be shared with friends via Facebook, Twitter, text message and email or a new refill station altogether can be submitted.

See how it works here.
The Quench app is available for free in the Apple App Store, Android Market and BlackBerry App World.

Below is a rare glimpse into our logo creation process.

Fixmo: Mobile Risk Management

Fixmo develops software that allows companies to manage their employees mobile devices and protects them from viruses, hacking and sensitive data loss. The actual concepts behind that rather simple explanation are a lot more complex. That’s why when we were asked to tell their story in a video we used abstract geometric imagery alongside black and white photos of real objects to get the point across.

McMaster

Let’s say you’re about to graduate high school and want to become an engineer. Touring universities used to mean a debauched road-trip where a keen graduate student shows you the cafeteria and tells you about their ‘really great larp parties’.

McMaster University would like to offer a more informative and productive way to view their facilities and learn about their program. They commissioned us to build a site that gives prospective students a virtual tour, using 360° panoramic buildings and classrooms with Google Street View technology and experience McMaster Engineering. Each panorama contains click-able hotspots that link to related HTML5 audio and video content. The experience is available across all browsers and platforms and can be accessed from tablets as well.

Living Docs

The Living Docs Project is a collaboration between Mozilla (the makers of Firefox) and several high-profile public art organizations , like the Tribeca Film Institue. “The partners in the Living Docs Project believe that the ethos of the web – collaboration, constant learning, and iteration — offers a fundamentally new way of producing documentary. We hold events, celebrate projects and share code to explore the unique possibilities that the web offers to documentary creators.”

The collaborative, open-source nature of the project is reflected in the sites modular, easily-updatable functionality, as well as in the slick eye-ball logo we created.

HIGHRISE One Millionth Tower

One Millionth Tower is the latest chapter in the ongoing NFB documentary series HIGHRISE. It was meant to be a six minute animated short, illustrating how a crumbling housing project in suburban Toronto could be transformed with the input of forward-thinking planners, architects and residents.

But then things got complicated.

Six months of feverish production later, and One Millionth Tower launches at Mozilla Festival in London. Featured by wired.com as the world’s first webGL-based interactive doc, One Millionth Tower blends together such digital tools as video, 3D modelling and textures, animation, sound and particle effects, social media, and weather channels, to create a surprisingly analog world.

One Millionth Tower is a technological first: an interactive documentary built with open-source HTML5 and a Web-based Graphics Library (WebGL). Made for the contemporary browser, it places you in the three-dimensional world of a run-down highrise neighbourhood, where you can interact with the environment and see it re-imagined as a lively, flourishing community.

Helios handled the technical research and development, javascript programming, webGL implementation and art direction.

Go and explore One Millionth Tower
You can learn more about how this project was made here.

“The makers of One Millionth Tower reinvented the documentary format…
…as close to three-dimensional as something on a flat screen can get.”
Angela Watercutter, wired.com

“Damned Cool”
Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing

“Watch This: Here’s how you make a documentary only using HTML5 and webGL graphics”
Adrian Covert, Gizmodo