AB
Augmenting 50 years of hip hop.
Project
synopsis
If iconic concert hall Ancienne Belgique (AB) wants to celebrate fifty years of hip op, we want to join the party. So we were hyped when they approached us with their idea for an augmented experience on the facade of their venue. An experience that would give an overview of the rich and powerful history hip op has accumulated over the years. Yondr designed, AB researched, together we discussed and in the end our team delivered a webAR that would make all the cool guys proud, from the East ànd the West-side.
Challenge
The intention was to give an exhaustive overview of those fifty years, visualized in a hip op-worthy manner, on the facade. Celebrating a half-century is fun, but a challenge because you have so much material to browse through. So many artists, iconic songs, pivotal moments took place, that the content selection was no walk in the park. We organized all the research in blocks of ten years, visualized by a cassette with era-specific elements, and added a time scrubber on the bottom of the visuals to make the experience more manageable. With small design interventions, we succeeded in showing a relevant selection of information without overwhelming the viewer.
A fancy facade
Picture this: you are waiting in line for the concert to start. You scan a QR code, launch the webAR in your browser and hold your smartphone up to the facade, and suddenly it comes to life! You see fifty years of hip hop history passing before you, decade after decade. Concert tickets, tracklists, posters and icons, with a strong focus on all the hip hop talent Brussels has to offer. All this to the sound of young Belgian talent. As the AB’s main sponsor, Proximus took responsibility to fund the call to action at the end: Try your luck and win one year of free concerts at the AB. Par-tay!
Designing order
This was a challenging project. Not necessarily for us, but for the AB and its hip hop community, who had to sift through the data and make a relevant selection. We offered our design expertise to create order from chaos, and with the addition of our augmented reality skills, the whole thing really came together and came to life. So kudos to the community, thanks to the AB for the trust, and we are going to try our luck for sure!