Samsung tasked FreeState with the design and planning of their booth at CES, the principal global event for consumer electronics. 

CES is also the biggest trade fair in the world. And Samsung's booth, as befitting the world's leading technology company, was the biggest. Our task was immense. 

We won the pitch with a fresh perspective on how their trade shows could work, and with an exciting new design. Our solution grew from their objectives, being more experience led and better telling their whole brand story. 

As a world leader, Samsung should own the show. In 2013, they did. 

Samsung was the top brand on twitter during CES 2013. - www.mashable.com

"Samsung seemed to tower over the other competitors." - LA Times

"As a direct result of the show, 88% of participants say Samsung has boosted its profile in the tech world." - TrendingNow, January 2013

We used the relocation of Dolby to their new London HQ as an opportunity to build on their campaign to remind the world that Sound Matters. We crafted an experience to re-affirm this story for their top customers and key global stakeholders. 

More than anyone Dolby knows the importance of sound to transport the imaginations of an audience. Using their highly innovative platform for cinema sound, Atmos, we created a unique moment of theatre for a select audience that was joyously monosensory, taking our audience on a journey through Dolby's history and achievements, beautifully contextualised in their new central London home.  

"Sound is our business. We try to inspire our audiences with its potential at every opportunity. The launch gave us a great opportunity to tell this story to our key audience and FreeState created an appropriately unique piece of theatre to deliver it." 

Catherine Ogilvie. General Manager, EMEA Marketing

To deepen our understanding of, and to help drive innovation in, the consumer electronics industry, we launched the Zeitgeist Project.

The industry is driven by a race to ever newer, thinner and faster products. We wanted to bring the consumer more squarely back into this dialouge. The Zeitgeist Project looks instead at the trends which drive consumer behaviour to see how this might inform new product development and point to new opportunities for the industry. 

The first event, held in Berlin, saw eight internationally renowned speakers offering their views on influential patterns and products shaping the industry. 

Their conclusions can be found in a great piece by BBC Click and on the project website The Zeitgeist Project.

Stand by for event number 2....

Inspired by the darkroom experience at the Lexus Showroom in Singapore, FreeState created a unique and rich sensory experience which enhanced the unique and rich features of the new Lexus GS. A pop-up shop, which had never been done before in Singapore's car industry, enhancing the overall sales experience. 

A sound room featured the Mark Levinson audio system used in the Lexus GS, and the darkroom showcased the cars lighting features. The three day event was a success with over 500 media and guests in attendance. 

Designing the largest booth at the world's largest electronics fair is, to date, FreeState's biggest and most complicated project, and one we've done for four years now.

This nine month project, a 6,000sqm interactive showcase for the converging complexity of Sony's content included a direct client cluster of 150 Sony directors, creators and managers, involved the creation of a digital platform requiring 7.5 kilometres of cabling, lasted one week and required nearly 300 staff.

Add to this the fact that the space was in effect an ensemble of live happenings, all of which worked in perfect concert, you have on your hands the mother of all projects. We loved it.

When MTV & Calvin Klein asked FreeState to help promote the launch of a new CKOne clothing range in Europe, Asia and Latin America, we designed and toured an intriguing white, mirrored cube around a series of MTV-sponsored underground fashion parties in London, Berlin, Mexico City and Beijing.

Tying in with the overarching brand campaign, partygoers, musicians, models and celebrities were given the opportunity to star in their own CKOne commercial, all filmed within The Box.

At the 2011 MTV EMAs in Belfast a powerful real world brand platform was created attracting crowds in their thousands.

Inspiring the audience to take part, to dance, their weird and wonderful moves shown live at the EMAs and live online.

Bouncing audiences between Real World Awareness and Digital World Transactions, this is the first example of a series. 

Asked by Nokia to choreograph the most important part of its annual state of the nation meeting, The Agency of Change is one of FreeState's most innovative and expressive projects.

Working with a group of professional actors, we transformed the Beaumont Chapel in Windsor into a beautifully lit new technology showcase, a live event that placed 200 of Nokia's most senior directors at the centre of a multi-sensory experience, one which had them instantly feeding their impressions back to friends and colleagues.

Described by the client as an experience 'so amazing that the natural lines of client, agency and friendship are blurred', it has had a fundamental effect on the way Nokia thinks about its events.

Manchester City FC tasked FreeState with re-imagining the fan experience at their ground on match day and beyond. We took on both the creative and commercial challenge of achieving this.

FreeState designed a new match day experience that brought people to the ground earlier and kept them there longer. We developed a business plan and commercial proposals, maximising revenue by creating targeted opportunities to spend, conceiving a new event space, content programme and optimized retailing opportunities.

As part of the SpinVox remit, FreeState was asked to create a real world representation of its principle service, the conversion of voice to text.

Key to the project was the job of turning a service perceived as interesting but essentially mechanical into something warm, human and inspiring. Taking as its starting point the idea of the the wishing well, we created an eight metre high, mirrored structure, positioned it in central London and invited passersby to step inside and cast their wish by ringing a dedicated number. The voicemail then instantly appeared as text projected on the Wishing Well's wall, and on a specially created wensite.

Enormous fun, popular, and at at times very moving, the combined effects of its idea, design, popup nature and location resulted in SpinVox receiving a great deal of Christmas attention.

In 2010, Sony tasked FreeState with communicating their total 3D proposition to 220,000 IFA visitors and beyond, positioning the Sony as the leading entertainment brand.

Using the Lens-to-Living Room concept, we conceived and produced a live 3D experience, celebrating all aspects of the Sony entertainment proposition. With a show comprising bands, game designers, film directors, performances & presenters, all shot, edited and screened live using Sony professional and consumer products, visitors were able to gain intimate experience of the entire 3D production process.

IFA 2009 saw the live global launch of the new Sony brand message make.believe. Taking the ‘dot’ as the link between electronics & entertainment, imagination and creativity, FreeState created a series of large-scale brand films, integrating cross-category products, music, movies & games as well as celebrating their sponsorship of FIFA – a truly Sony United experience.

We showcased over a thousand new products and cutting-edge technologies within exhibition architecture designed to lengthen dwell-time. We attracted record visitor numbers and gave Sony a unique aesthetic direction for the future campaign.

Sony briefed FreeState to create an exhibition event that would help redefine how people engage with the brand.

We conceived and produced a monumental White Wood where colossal trees were hubs for dynamic interactive experiences at the heart of a pristine product gallery. A giant sun rose and set every ten minutes within the wood, triggering a mesmerizing showcase of bespoke brand content, set to a magical soundscape. This was a 6,000sqm space designed to stimulate curiosity, reward exploration and encourage play.

The Sony pavilion was three times as popular as competitors, with visitors staying longer and engaging on deeper levels. FreeState were awarded a Cannes Bronze Design Lion for this work.

For one weekend 'The Coke Side of Life' transformed the cold winter reality of an Amsterdam park with a summer beach festival complete with a giant summer day sun. 

Amazingly the sun recently rose again but this time for a rival soft drink!

http://greyworld.org/archives/1108

Integral to our Agency of Change event for Nokia's 200 most senior directors, was a product & technology exhibition. Like any good exhibition, it needed to work well and let the stars be the stars, in other words, let the technical wizardry of the Nokia Research Centre shine. The exhibition design is simply a servant of these objectives.

This short retrospective celebrates 25 years of innovation from the Nokia Research Center, showcasing some of their ground-breaking creations which have changed the way the world speaks. 

The challenge was how to take such a wide spectrum of fascinating and complex stories, and create a single narrative which has the right balance - somewhere between informative, accessible, and inspiring. 

Here is the result, with not a little help from the great Sir Michael Gambon.

In collaboration with Jim Fields and the NRC 

These five movies are the first filmic expression of Sony's new Brand Book and the first insight into how Sony Entertainment Network brings together unlimited content, cloud services and their wealth of interconnected products.

Given this complex brief, the final films found a tone that was very easy and accessible, helping to place the Sony story in a recognisable real world context.

In collaboration with Airside and Smoke & Mirrors.

Helping the Sony 3D story find its own visual language, this animation became the centrepiece for Sony's 3D World at IFA, inspiring and anchoring all animated and printed content.

When projected across the 40m wide elevations of the show's core, we created a sense of wonder where 2D solid surfaces seemed to unpeel to reveal another 3D world hidden beneath.

In collaboration with KIN Design.

"Breathtaking" "Utterly Unique" "Wow" "Awesome" "They're Alive!" 

These are reactions to Blackpool's landmark sculptures, the Dune Grasses, as they wave back and forth in the breezes and gales blowing across the city's famous promenade. 

The world's biggest kinetic sculptures; four years in the making, from wind tunnel testing in the aeronautics laboratories of City University, to full size prototyping in gales of 55 Knots (110 km/h) on the Isle of Wight. Now putting Blackpool back on the tourist map, these four extraordinary super-size personalities are as bold and charismatic as the city itself.

In collaboration with LDA Design, Atelier One and City University.  

Designed to commemorate Channel 4's 25th birthday, The Big 4 is a 50-foot sculpture, the result of a collaboration between FreeState and four British based artists.

A so-called 'floating' sculpture, The Big 4's frame forms the channel's onscreen logo from certain angles, requiring therefore a skin for propoer visibility. An inspiring public canvas, its first four interpretative skins were provided by artists Nick Knight, Mark Titchner, El Anatsui and Stephanie Imbeau. Since then it has gone on to be the subject of fiercely fought student competitions and will be the sculpture of the Paralympics.

Ever changing, ever growing, an important icon in its own right, The Big 4 continues to be organised and managed by FreeState.

Photography courtesy of C4.

Nick Knight is among the world’s most influential photographers. He has won numerous awards for his editorial, fashion and advertising work. As a fashion photographer, Nick Knight has consistently challenged conventional notions of beauty.

In collaboration with Speirs + Major

The work of Turner Prize nominee Mark Titchner explores belief systems, from advertising slogans to religious symbols, television to club flyers, often taking messages out of their original context, enabling us to question catchphrases and find our own meaning.

Ghanaian sculptor El Anatsui has received international acclaim during his distinguished 40-year career as both a sculptor and teacher. His sculptures are collected by major museums including the British Museum, Centre Pompidou and the Smithsonian Institute.

Stephanie Imbeau was awarded her Masters degree in Fine Art from Newcastle University and gained international recognition for her winning Big 4 concept, Shelter.

Photographer Tom Powell.

A recent Fashion Design graduate from Kingston University, Hannah was the winner of the second Big 4 competition. Hannah works across multiple disciplines including fashion, graphics, product & illustration, exploring the meanings associated with materials.

Photography courtesy of C4, Photographer Dave King. 

Unveiled to celebrate Channel 4's broadcasting of the London 2012 Paralympic Games, the installation 'Monument to the Unintended Performer' is by disabled sculptor and artist Tony Heaton. 

The piece brings together three elements in addition to the Big 4: the first based on the classical Greek sculpture Discobolus, the discus thrower, evoking the spirit of the Olympics; the second element, a circle, representing the wheel of the international symbol of access, and lastly, the introduction of gold, silver and bronze considers heirarchy. 

Photography courtesy of C4, Photographer Dave King.

Film excerpt as seen on the Channel 4 news. 

Virgin Atlantic asked FreeState to help assert their ownership over Terminal 3 with installations that reflected the brand personality: luxurious, dynamic and a touch of cheekiness.

For the centre of the Upper Class wing, we designed a 4.3m sphere made of concentric steel rings which creates an intriguing moire effect as the luckiest of passengers arrive for check in. Like The Glitterball, the Big Red Banner at Terminal 3 uses the lively moire effect from two water-cut aluminium banners in Virgin Atlantic red.

In collaboration with Speirs + Major

Our work with Sony spans trade shows, exhibitions, retail best practise and events.

In a retail context, we have explored and created numerous best practise showcases of innovative reatil design, display and visual merchandising to help shape the views and understanding of global dealers. The challenge is to create a uniformity that works across borders and boundaries and within such a multi-faceted organisation. We work closely with Sony at both a regional and global level to achieve this and bring to bear our considerable operational retail expertise to deliver results.

Tasked with transforming the top floor of the Sony Benelux building into a showroom as glamorous as it is useful, Skybox was a gem of a project.

And given that the space is used to introduce global dealers to Sony's latest product lines, it couldn't have been more important. In dividing 260m2 into 12 interconnected rooms, all featuring Sony products situated in luxury lifestyle environments, we infused the concept of the showroom with the sensibility of a high-end fashion magazine, thereby demonstrating its creative potential.

Enjoyed by dealers and clients alike, we like to think Skybox has had far-reaching effects on the way Sony showcases its new products.