Interactive Web Application
An interactive web application for one of the world’s leading technology companies
The brief
We were enlisted for the design and development of this interactive web application (which uses webGL, AI and machine learning libraries) by experiential marketing agency, Cogs & Marvel. It enlisted our expertise to develop a playful ‘experience’ as part of its design for Google’s exhibition stand at ISE 2024 in Barcelona.
The app had to be attention-grabbing and engaging enough to entice people in, but also showcase key Google technologies for the more technology-focussed attendees.
In order to support the overarching campaign narrative - “deliver powerful experiences with ChromeOS”, we needed to create an active, playful, interactive experience that was developed and would run on ChromeOS.
The approach
The initial brief was very specific about how we needed to develop the experience, but open as to what the experience could be.
The quick turnaround could have lowered our sights, but rather we saw it as a challenge.
We tasked ourselves with creating a web app which could run in a browser and react to human movement in real-time via a standard webcam feed.
Staying in an abstract, but branded world was important so we restricted the building blocks to Google brand shapes and colours and took inspiration from the Android logo to help guide how to represent ‘players’.
Using some of Google’s machine learning libraries felt like a no-brainer so we wove together Google's own MediaPipe API and the Matter.js physics library, creating an environment in which to play with shapes. ‘Chromefetti’ was born.
MediaPipe (now part of AI Edge and Gemini) gave us an amazing prediction engine to work with. It predicts movement so well that users’ perception is that it’s tracking their motion. In fact it’s predicting where points on the body are going to be next, and then updating those predictions, based on human movement libraries and where those points were milliseconds before.
After three weeks we had a stable, visually arresting and playable web app to help attract people to the stand.
The result
Some of the creative and development team attended ISE 2024 in Barcelona to assist with installation and support the application.
Chromefetti worked brilliantly as an eye-catching tool for attracting visitors to the stand. The Google event team discovered that explaining how the prediction engine functions, and the use of core Google tech were perfect discussion areas from which to start conversations with existing and potential partners.
Chromefetti was such a success in Barcelona, that Google requested a repeat of the experience at further events, and for us to adapt the experience for use as an interactive element of the Google Visitor Center in Mountain View, California. This is a public venue where visitors can enjoy art installations and learn more about Google products.
Chromefetti is now being used as an engagement tool for visitors, and to educate them on the powerful capability of the humble Chromebook.
We added a text introduction so that users would be able to play without assistance, and refined the look and feel of the content to make it more suitable for this visitor centre. We also increased the playability and refined three of the preset modes, giving users a more defined and cleaner experience.
Output
1 x Interactive experience for multiple summits and exhibitions
Event support
1 x Interactive experience for the Google Visitor Centre in Santa Clara, California.
Credits
Concept & Design – Dan Mellor
Senior Producer – Tom Windsor
Creative Technologists – Matt Pearson & Paul Selley