Concept Overview

CCD was commissioned by an Australian startup company with close ties to the financial sector. We were to lead the creative direction and design of a virtualized city that combined aspects of wealth building and a social software experience. This would then be utilized through iPhone, Android, and web-based access.

The UX had three levels of engagement:

1. City View – Users navigate the city to find specific buildings to engage with.
2. Building View – Users access a loading turntable of active buildings.
3. Lobby View – Upon loading, users are presented with an AR experience that lets them orbit through the lobby to use the kiosk to activate specific actions.

We looked at this design challenge through multiple aesthetic lenses to make it feel more of an experience in which users would be happy to invest their time. We travelled to Sydney and walked over 40km, ferried over 50km, took over 1000 photos of buildings to use as reference and inspiration. While the platform is global, we wanted the first active buildings to have a distinctly relatable feel to architectural design cues within Sydney.

The city was designed to naturally grow outward from a center point, so we developed an address system within the map; where placeholder buildings could be sold off as digital real estate to prospective investors. Because this would live on mobile devices, there was a limit to the amount of detail we could apply to each building so we made two versions of each building — one that you could directly engage with in the app and another that would be used for pre-rendered video content.

CCD Roles:

Creative Direction

Concept Design

Technical Development

CGI