Instagram @ SXSW (South by southwest) 2018
- Interactive Experience Design
- Experiential Design
- 3D modelling and Visualization
Client
Instagram/Facebook
2018
South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as “South By”, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas, USA. The conference lasts for 10 days with the interactive track lasting for five days, music for seven days, and film for nine days.
An essential destination for global professionals, the annual March event features sessions, music and comedy showcases, film screenings, exhibitions, professional development, and a variety of networking opportunities. SXSW proves that the most unexpected discoveries happen when diverse topics and people come together.
STUDIO We’re Magnetic
ROLE Experience Designer, 3D Modelling + visuals/renders
CREATIVE DIRECTOR Emily Fife
ASSOCIATE CREATIVE DIRECTOR Debbie Yeh
ART DIRECTION Emily Taylor
Programs Used:
Rhino 3D
VRay Render Engine
Adobe Photoshop
For their presence at SxSw 2018, Instagram approached the team at We're Magnetic to produce an Austin themed experience for Facebook employees to interact with. The key focus being centered around educating and inspiring Facebook employees, and marketers on Instagram’s video products and solutions, and having it done in a fun and engaging way.
We wanted to create a physical presence that really showed the features Instagram was wanting to highlight, and to do so in the most interactive and truly fun way possible. Additionally, as they had asked for it to draw from a theme of Austin, Texas, we wanted to really dig deep and pull out some of the most iconic elements which makes Austin a stand out and destination city.
“Keep Austin Weird”
In our workshopping session, we all kept coming back to the slogan of Austin, Texas which is “Keep Austin Weird”. We wanted our design to embody the “weirdness” of Austin, but keep it fun and engaging for those who had never experienced the Austin, Texas way.
After more workshopping, we were able to gather many themes which we felt really made Austin the destination it is and decided on three iconic Austin elements to focus on.
Barton Springs
Barbecue
Live Music
Barton Springs
Within Zilker Park's 358 acres lies one of the crown jewels of Austin - Barton Springs Pool. The pool itself measures three acres in size, and is fed from underground springs with an average temperature of 68-70 degrees, ideal for year-round swimming. Over the years, Barton Springs Pool has drawn people from all walks of life, from legislators who have concocted state laws there to free-spirited, topless sunbathers who turned heads in the 1970s. Robert Redford learned to swim at the pool when he was five years old while visiting family in Austin. Today, Barton Springs still attracts a diverse crowd of people and has seen record setting numbers of visitors nearing 800,000 in recent years.
Knowing how iconic Barton Springs is to Austin Texas, it was an obvious choice for one of the three engagements we would create. We further dove (no pun intended) into what makes up Barton Springs on an even higher level. The items you see, the smells, colors, etc.
After collection and filtering many keypoints, we started laying out more pulled together mood boards and initial sketch for the actual activation to design.
Mood boards, concept sketch, props/materials planning
Time for a swim
Taking all of our findings into account, I then created a 3D mock up the Barton Springs portion to the activation.
3D render of Barton Springs experience, from above.
Front view of Barton Springs 3D render.
Barbecue
You can’t think of Texas and not automatically think of Barbecue. It’s one of the many things the state is known for and is a staple to many peoples love and livelihoods. The amount of time and dedication true barbecue aficionados spend on their craft is amazing and one of a kind.
Lets dig in!
Drawing inspiration from the immense barbecue scene in Austin, Texas we gravitated to the parts that make up the actual experience one has when barbecuing. From the tools, meats, sides, even the trays and materials you see on the table. And you can’t talk about barbecue in Texas without taking note of the many competitions they hold around the true art of barbecue. All areas provided so much fuel to spark our fire and get this BBQ experience going.
Mood boards, concept sketch, props/materials planning
Taking all the “ingredients” to our own iconic Austin BBQ experience, I then created the 3D mock up.
Final render looking at entrance/queue to Oculus destination.
Live Music
Austin, Texas is officially, as of 1991 when the slogan was confirmed, the live music capital of the world. So why is Austin the live music capital of the world? The city of Austin, Texas has the most live music venues per person in the entire United States. It also hosts a handful of the largest music festivals in the world. We are talking about almost 2000 bands around the city, along with several live music venues and local music festivals.
No matter where you go in Austin or what time it is, you can always find a live band performing somewhere. You can find everything from country to classical, hard rock to pop, and every genre in between, all within just a few miles of each other.
Gathering inspiration for the LIve Music experience was easy as we had so much to pull from. But we really wanted to relate it back to the “basics” or the essentials of what makes the live music scene in Austin so iconic and memorable. We knew we could go crazy on this, but we thought, maybe simpler is better to draw the raw emotion of the Austin music scene. Below you can see how we broke it down further and further in the mood boards to final prop list.
Mood boards, concept sketch, props/materials planning
These go to eleven
Striping it back to the essentials of live music and making full use of the vibrant colors of the Facebook and Instagram brand, I then created the 3D mock ups for the final experience of the three.
Lets get weird Austin!
Final 3D mock up of the entire Instagram experience for their presence at SXSW 2018
From renders to reality, we were excited to finally see this experiment come to life, live in Austin at SXSW 2018!
I think it’s easy to say from the images below that people really enjoyed the experience and interacting with it, while taking home their own memorable moments and posting them to Instagram.
click on images for larger view
Things definitely got weird in Austin, in all the best of ways. We succeeded with what we set out to do by creating an interactive and engaging experience for Instagram during their presence at SXSW 2018. Facebook employees couldn’t get enough of it and created so many fun, crazy, memorable, and of course Weird moments to share. Exactly what the team at Instagram wanted!