NORTH KINGDOM PROJECT — Weetakid, an intergalactic mobile gameplay for kids, is a concept made by BBH London for Weetabix, which is a popular whole grain wheat breakfast cereal in England. The assignment for North Kingdom was to create a mobile game with an AR solutution connected to the cereal package.

I myself wasn’t so much involved as I use to be in this kind of projects when BBH London was in charge of the overall feeling, Yum Yum (London) made the characters and 3d, and Zoink Games (Gothenburg) took care of the games, including game bible.

My role was pretty much to take care of the first look and feel, concept designs, covers and some interface design/ mock ups. The final production was so so in my eyes… but it has some cool visuals so I thought it could be fun to keep it here on the blog for the future. The image above, with the three iPhones, have I done in Cinema 4D.

“Weetakid, the game. Brought to you by Weetabix.”

— WIP

Some first rough sketches of the cereal package cover I did together with our 3D artist Mathias Lindgren. We knew Yum Yum was going to do the final 3D so we focused on design ideas, proportions, logotypes and other design elements.

We had to finish this print before we started the “real” project because of timing. So at this point we had to figure out what kind of world Weetakid would lived in.

Here are some first stuff from Yum Yum in London with my feedback written on top.

We wanted to keep Weetakid in a happy lovely mood with a cool logotype …

… but the client wanted to keep him like this; more serious and frustrating. This is the final version for the cereal package with the logotype from the Weetabix design department. Better?

Another solution we did for another kind of package.

A part of the storyboard from BBH London who was in charge of the flow.

My mock ups for some of the interfaces (not finals).

Some loading screens I put together for different screens.

3D by Yum Yum London —

The best part of the project was to work with Yum Yum London who was in charge of the 3D. Lovely guys to work with, thank you guys!

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This spring we at North Kingdom did a small web project including both an iPhone app and five movies with Forsman & Bodenfors for Volvo. We created an online guide with the 25 most spectacular winter adventures in Scandinavia, a project called Volvo Cross Country Travels. With the app you can receive special designed badges from each location. Forsman & Bodenfors made the concept idea, my role was Interactive Art Director.

To mock up the first design (B) I received some rough sketches (A) from Forsman & Bodenfors, who wanted a clean magazine so it could run on an iPad. Therefor we chose HTML5 as a platform.

Some screenshoots of the final result (small changes have been done since launch).

We created some cool badges for each location which you could get digital if you checked in at chosen location. Our idea was also make them physical so people could receive them by post so people could put it on their cars. Illustrations by Anton Eriksson, directed by Jakob Nylund.

We also sent two guys for 3 weeks of filming. Jakob Nylund and Riccardo Tagliabue made five beautiful spots (above). I sold in the idea and really wanted to go with them, but the time issue made me to stay at the base.

You can read more about the filming here — North Kingdom is filming for Volvo XC Travels

The total result turned out so so I think except for the badges and the videos that had higher level. Some annoying tech problems with external partner cut down almost all love. Instead of doing the whole thing with HTML5 we ended up with a hybrid solution (Flash) the last two weeks of the project.

However, it was great to work with my old friend Staffan Lamm at Forsman & Bodenfors again. They are doing such excellent work these guys! Mathias Lindgren (North Kingdom 3D) and I was working inhouse at their Gothenburg office the last week. On the picture you can see Mathias at their total orange place, 8.45 PM, Friday night. We where the last one leaving. (Photo taken by iPhone)

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A first rough body tracking test from out little lab project Woodbot Pilots. We have used a 82-inch display from Samsung, Unity 3 technology and a camera from a local Skellefteå company called Fotonic, who manufactures 3D cameras, based on time-of-flight (TOF) technology.

The difference between Xbox Kinect and our camera is that we are using TOF when Kinect is using a structured light and can maintain tracking through a range up to 3.6 meters when Fotonic have a max range of 7 meters. The Kinect sensor is built for use in living rooms and our camera has been optimised for industrial and demanding environments. Both cameras are using imaging CMOS sensors

The huge display was sent to Skellefteå today where we will finish the work within the next two weeks. More stuff will be posted soon.

Link to Vimeo.

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NORTH KINGDOM, WORK IN PROGRESS — For the moment I’m working as a Creative Director/ Art Diretctor / Designer with a little different project then I am used to. It’s an interactive installation that will be placed at Skellefteå Airport this winter. An installation where we will use a very interesting 3D camera technique and a huge 82 inch one-touch screen. If you have seen Microsoft’s Project Natal you maybe know what I’m talking about, it’s a 3D technique that can be used both in games and installation like ours, but also for instore installations, interactive shop windows and much more.

The 3D camera is developed and made by Optronic in Skellefteå and it’s using Time-of-flight (TOF) technology (can be explained as radar operating with light). More information about the camera at Fotonic.

“With the technology, the time it takes for a very short laser pulse to travel to a certain object is measured, allowing distance to be calculated with great accuracy. Using a unique sensor chip, the distance to each individual pixel in the scene can be measured, creating a complete three-dimensional image.”

Video — Proof-of-concept of hand controlled car game
Video — 3D camera test

The basic idea behind the concept was to make something pretty simple (orders from the 3D cam tech guys) and focus on the visual, because we don’t want any bugs when it will be a public installation. That gave us directions to use as few joints in the bodies as possible. Therefore I had to figure out how to make them so simple as possible but still interesting. The first sketches I did were these fluffy things, which was made for one of our first ideas around an interactive mirror. From the beginning our ideas were mostly to make something arty, focusing on something we called Flight DNA (when every flight trip is unique), and digital mirrors with avatars (which is still on the track in another shape). However, it felt little lame, so we ended up with a game instead that anyone could easily understand. During this period I was working a lot with Per-Mattias Nordkvist, Improove (who I worked together with at Paregos in Skellefteå, way back).

(These fluffy characters are now moved to another ongoing project).

When we moved over to the game idea I wanted characters with more attitude and possibilities to fly. When Skellefteå is famous for its wood culture, what would be more right to do the characters in wood? And what would be cooler to make these wooden characters into robots? Above is the first concept sketches I made in Illustrator, showing the different bodies, heads, etc. It is also showing some first ideas of how the environment will look like.

Here are we working with the texture, colors and placement of the fabricated logotypes (which will give the characters a racer attitude). Pawel Wilkos from Ars Thanea is helping me out with the 3D when Mathias Lindgren, our 3D master, went on paternity leave. So big thanks to our old friends at Ars Thanea! We are own you one!

When I came up with the idea of these wooden robots/pilots it felt like we could do something more around them. Could we make them like a brand, could we take them further to other platforms? It’s some ideas we now are looking at, so I really hope we will see them in other platforms soon. Right now we are actually doing some first tests on iPhone (something I have been dreaming about over three years now). My intention is also to make a shop so people can order them as 15-20 cm high design wooden characters, limited edition. I hope to connect our local wood companies together to make it happen. If not, let me know if you have any ideas how to sponsor the project.

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