Free Electrons 2021 - Digital Experience

Agency: Obra.ag Year: 2020-21

Role: Creative Director, Brand & Site Design Lead

1. Business Objective

Pivot covid with an immersive event experience; built on WordPress 🥲, with API integrations.

Project Objective

To refresh the Free Electrons brand and create a 3D website + event mascot.

2. Discovery Ideation & Idea manifesto

Moods

Part of the project's initial requirements was to establish a brand narrative with a mascot and our "virtual” event space, named Futureland (the idea being that Free Electrons event is about the future of energy, and about the companies that are pushing for the sector innovation).

We started off with reference moods around a 3D virtual world and a mascot research.

3. Exploration

Elly & Futureland Definitions

Our research landed us in a direction named "Vibrant Energy” which goes for a more bold visual design in terms of color, 3d approach and potential for our mascot to interact with the event in virtual insertions.

*Brand application on moodboards style study*

Final Designs

The event took place at 5 different moments of the year, with multiple users from energy startups, VCs, and some of the most important companies in the energy sector in the world. The website experience supported video calls, chat and many functions to help participants interact and collaborate with each other.

*With UX/UI approvals we then built the 3D map and interactions within the map for things like event lobby, agenda and auditorium buildings.*

*Our mascot Elly was the event virtual host now, having a series of videos for the intro, during the event, and post-event participation on youtube.*

4. Delivery

Event Experience

We worked in weekly sprints, in order to deliver this complex project in the short timeline we had - 8 weeks to develop the back end of the platform, the 3d environment that would actually host and support the different sessions and contents, and the 3d mascot and three initial animations.

5. Outcomes

Results & Impact

On the client's own words:

They were presented with a very big challenge and didnt shy away from it. They presented the risks, managed expectations, and guaranteed the final result was aligned with our vision. Communication was great throughout the process.