GKN AEROSPACE / Pavilion Design
GKN Aerospace asked Ouno Creative to design their pavilion at Farnborough International Airshow 2016. This project was one of Ouno’s biggest to date and involved a myriad of cutting edge technologies.
The Brief To design a pavilion at the Farnborough International Airshow that the visitor would find truly engaging and interactive allowing them to explore GKN’s advanced capabilities and products whilst viewing a selection of great exhibits such as an Ariane Space Nozzle amongst others. As GKN Aerospace has grown into a global technology leader, they needed “a more cutting-edge way to engage with our audience at FIA 2016”. We set about reviewing a number of exciting technologies and included these within our original plans. Over time these plans evolved of course but our principal technologies remained; 3D Projection Mapping, transparent touch screen, futures touchscreen presentation. Additionally, all exhibits would feature a dedicated ipad app featuring a new graphical wireframe campaign look that would feature strongly throughout GKNs presence at the show. The pavilion itself also showcased this ‘new look’ on the large format wall graphics.
Our client said “We have attended Farnborough for many years and have always had a clean and professional exhibition space. However, as GKN Aerospace has grown into a global technology leader, we needed a more cutting-edge way to engage with our audience at FIA 2016. We trusted Ouno’s experience and creativity to help move our presence to a new level.” Whilst the design of the pavilion was handled by ourselves, the build was delivered by construction experts SDD who’s ‘can-do’ attitude is incomparible. They were simply incredible at bringing our plans to life and applying their expert knowledge throughout the process.
3D projection Perhaps the highlight or the main attraction of the pavilion was the 3D image mapping exhibit. Ouno teamed up with Drive productions to create this dramatic brand experience. Our projection surface was a 5 metre long model aircraft – precision machined and handcrafted from high density foam by JH May model makers. This model was then expertly mounted to appear to float on a wall within a circular theatre environment. This was our ‘blank-canvas’. We then needed to plan the animated content to project onto this model, so we set about scripting and storyboarding the animation before work began hand-in-hand with Drive Productions to plan the visuals to be used within the animation.
Drive then created complex and stunning visual animations that would convey the many clever manufacturing processes and technologies developed by GKN Aerospace. Using complex multi-layered projection-mapping techniques, the 3D graphics were then overlaid and wrapped on to the contours of the model plane, including the fuselage, the wings, the engine and the tail fins.
Nine projectors were used to cover the complex model with five separate content layers. This allowed the audience to view the aircraft and experience the mapped projections at very close quarters. To complete the immersive environment, innovative sound design was used by Drive to carefully engineer bespoke music, SFX and voiceovers and create perfect audio clarity in an acoustically-challenging space. This was the only projection-tech experience to be seen at this year’s Farnborough International Air show and was deemed to be a terrific success by all at GKN Aerospace and feedback was incredibly positive from those that experienced it.
HTML5 iPad presentations Ouno also designed and developed five HTML5 iPad applications that ran across iPads stationed around the pavilion. These presentations targeted specific products and capabilities that GKN Aerospace provide. Holographic Transparent Touch Screen Ouno Creative also designed a clever presentation for a 65 inch transparent LCD holographic screen from Pro Display that allowed the user to see an object placed behind it whilst also using an interactive interface overlaid onto the screen. This gave this touch screen an extra dimension and it blew away the visitors to the stand. We featured a large purpose-built display model of a jet engine inside a purpose-built display case, with the transparent LCD screen acting as a viewing window. We then designed and developed engaging interactive content to overlay the model behind.
Futures Presentation Another interactive display that featured in the pavilion was the Futures presentation that we designed and built. This was developed to outline the future of the aerospace industry and how GKN Aerospace’s advanced technologies are helping to pave the way.
Ouno loved leading this project whilst collaborating with others to bring it all together on-schedule and on-budget. We really enjoy making the best use of latest technologies within our designs to give maximum value to our clients and can’t wait until the next similar project! Our client had this to say “Ouno were able to offer a complete solution for us. As well as managing the design of the exhibition space, they also created the high-quality digital content for the screens, iPads etc. This meant that the end product was seamless and told a coherent story, and also that all content was created with future re-use in mind. The benefits of this are obvious: we were able to share our Farnborough experience and content with all employees, customers and other audiences who were not at the show, ensuring that our investment with Ouno provided great value for money.”