84.51º SUSPENDED SCULPTURE | ENVIRONMENTAL GRAPHIC DESIGN
Hanging, mobile sculpture enhances new Gensler-designed headquarters in downtown Cincinnati.
The Brand Experience commissioned us to design and fabricate a suite of branding features to help their client, 84.51º, educate different audiences on what they do and why it matters. Our solution was to design a series of features that build off each other as visitors flow through the building. First, in the street level lobby, then up the elevators and finally when arriving at the 9th-floor sky lobby. Through interactive pieces, murals and a large suspended sculpture, we designed a system that successfully embodies the client’s goal of using complex data to reveal important customer patterns for stronger relationships.
Gensler’s design of 84:51° headquarters is raw and stark, offering us a great canvas for environmental design. The street level lobby was the perfect location to introduce viewers to the iconic “digital dust.” This digital dust symbolizes the incredible amount of shopping data 84:51° collects on their client’s customers through loyalty shopping cards. The sky lobby on the 9th floor opens out on three-story canyons that cut through the lower floors—a perfect setting for our hanging focal feature. At first glance, the suspended sculpture depicts the pieces of data as chaos. However, upon closer inspection, two words can clearly be read from designated locations in the space. These words, “Customer 1st” and “Loyalty”, are the two tenants of 84.51º’s insight. This fun and memorable sculpture helps visitors, customers, vendors and employees alike, understand the why, how and what of 84:51°.
The main feature of the new building is a two-story suspended sculpture composed of over 300 brand-colored, shopping icons. At first glance, the hanging art installation appears as abstract pieces of data representing the vast amount of data that 84.51º collects through their loyalty programs. But, two distinct locations–which represent 84.51º’s insight–reveal two messages: LOYALTY from the 9th-floor location, and CUSTOMER 1ST from the 8th-floor.
The concept of the art installation was the easy part. Design development required building a design and fabrication dream team. The first task was to document the “as built” space. Berding Surveying provided 3D scanning of the environment, to ensure our hanging points for each piece were exact.
BaserMatter provided the computational geometric design to solve for the 2 viewing locations. A custom algorithm was designed to arrange the individual pieces in space. From the final design, detailed cut lists, wire length, locations were created for fabrication.
Vulkane fabricated the hanging struts and all of the individual hanging pieces. Using several techniques–CNC cutting, pointing and printing, and cutting individual support wires–Vulkane installed the piece over the two-story space.
Final tweaking allowed us to dial in the two views.
The result is both a meaningful and fun representation of 84.51º’s business model. The suspended sculpture is a useful tool to explain how 84:51 enhances customer experiences through data collection, analytics and insight
Winner of the 2019 Cincinnati Design Awards. The CDA program recognizes the best in design projects produced by Cincinnati-area architects, interior and landscape designers, community planners, and experiential graphic designers. See the full story on our blog here
White Design Studio is a multidisciplinary design firm located in Columbus and Cincinnati, Ohio. We specialize in the design, production, and installation of integrated branding solutions. Our solutions orchestrate corporate identity, marketing, storytelling, environmental, photography, video, print and interactive elements. At White Design Studio, we believe the best way to communicate your brand’s story is through branded environments and experiences. We work with manufacturers, service providers, non-profits, architects and developers, agencies, distributors, governments and municipalities, and museums. First, we identify the work that a campaign, space, or interactive needs to do. We can then model a vision of what success looks like, and design to meet that vision. We are passionate about helping clients communicate their value through well-crafted storytelling, a consistent 2D, 3D, and digital design approach and expert production techniques.
Strategy: White Design Studio is your strategically-focused design source. Our marketing communications are custom-tailored to meet our customers’ objectives. Our creative solutions take many forms, but all are designed for maximum effectiveness. Each solution delivers key brand messaging to a wide variety of audiences.
Branded Environments: Sometimes called Environmental Graphic Design or Experiential Graphic Design, White Design Studio designs and creates strategic, compelling and memorable experiences. Our solutions deliver key messaging, branded specifically for each target audience. Workplace, Corporate Briefing Centers, Showrooms and Lobbies, Museum Displays and Exhibits, Retail Showrooms and Store Design are all great examples of White Design’s sweet spot of design, fabrication and installation capabilities.
Interactive: We combine unique technologies and fabrication techniques to create impactful interactive solutions for conveying our customer’s messaging objectives. Our installations deliver critical information to all of your audiences in a way that is entertaining and memorable. RFID, Projection Mapping, Touch, Proximity Detection and the use of Motion Activated Devices are just a few of the tools we use to deliver your message. White Design Studio’s goal is to make the technology invisible so nothing comes between your audience and your message.
Corporate Sculptures: At White Design Studio we design art with a purpose. Our interior and exterior, custom-designed art installations and sculptures help create iconic symbols for Communities, Municipalities, Non-Profits and Corporations. These commissioned artworks embody the essence of a group by distilling their core brand messaging into a creative and unique 3D feature. Whether it’s interior or exterior sculptures, hanging mobiles in an atrium, a monumental courtyard centerpiece, or other public art installations Peter and his team collaborate with artisans to create one-of-kind expressions that tell your story in a memorable way.
White Design Studio operates most efficiently in the design sweet-spot between environments, identity, and communications. Comfortable stretching any direction, we are at ease designing for one element. But, we are at our best when we can combine each element to develop a fully integrated brand and messaging system. We collaborate with industry-leading professionals on large-scale projects, but can also comfortably operate as your single-source design partner. We partner with Developers, Architects, Engineers, Facility Managers, Creative Directors, Marketing Departments Advertising Agencies and other Design Studios.