ANDREW BRADY
Work
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Target
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Game Room
There's a fairly typical Target store nestled quietly into San Francisco's Metreon Mall. But this isn’t a typical Target. Beneath it is Open House: a public discovery space built specifically for Target to unveil products, study consumer behavior and gather insights to shape their national retail strategy. And we got to design the experience from scratch.
Creating space for play
By the time we were kicked off, Target had decided that Open House would feature "the future of gaming." The space would be separated into six zones for each technology shown (virtual reality, fitness gaming, etc.). Aside from that designation, however, we had total conceptual freedom. As it turned out, it was also a play space for us.
Once we could map zone onto those fundamental colors, we could develop an entire conceptual grammar that was completely unique to the space. Each zone could have its own personality and meaning relative to the others.
Getting in the zone
Once we had our building blocks, we were off. I wrote zone signs, product cards, exterior signage and a whole lot else. Really, the challenge was in the restraint — letting the zone design and game motions speak for themselves, and providing colorful context only when necessary.
Game, meet theory
Our idea was to distill gaming down to its most fundamental building blocks (controls, actions, colors, words, etc.). From there, it was just a matter of putting the blocks back together in various combinations. An example: from three colors (RGB), every digital color is possible. I had the lightbulb that overlapping those colors into a six-segment Venn diagram could give us a framework for mapping the various experiences.
The digital dimension
Of course, a tech exhibit needs a digital companion. Every game station was equipped with a tablet running a custom app showing game names, featured equipment and playing instructions. As a result, I now know all the controls for "Angry Birds: First Person Slingshot." So that's something.
[It's] an obvious play to make Target look hip to San Francisco's tech-savvy clientele, but it's also indicative of bigger industry changes.
Janko R, Tech Journalist (Protocol)
Client
My Contribution