Case study for Helsinki Festival

T U O M A S J A L A M O Communications Designer @TuomasJalamo

N I G H T O F T H E A R T S 2 0 1 4

V I L L E K A I S L A Creative Director

@vkaisla

M I K K O H A R J U Technology Director

@maharj

Creating a communal & living mobile art piece

A B O U T U S

• We design and implement outstanding mobile services

• Strategy, apps and mobile-first web solutions

• Founded in 2009

• 9 employees

• Offices in Turku and Helsinki

N I G H T O F T H E A R T S

• Part of Helsinki Festival

• Held annually in October

• Consists of both big and small art performances and events

• A communal event: this year, everyone was able to participate with their own contribution to the programme

Story so far: We had created an award-winning mobile site for Helsinki Festival a few years back. This year, they wanted to create a Night of the Arts event app that would

complement the spirit of the event in an unusual way.

C O M M U N I T Y-B A S E D S U R P R I S I N G A N E X P E R I E N C E

The fact that this year’s night was more community-based than before had to be present in the mobile application as well. Moreover, the app needed to be surprising and feel

like an experience in itself.

We came up with a living art map that would be based on the movement of the users visiting the event. !

By using the app, the users would be part of a communal art piece.

O U R I D E A

There were going to be over 300 individual events during the evening. How would an individual user be able to find the ones that interested him the most?

U I C H A L L E N G E

The solution was to offer not only a traditional map view and lists, but also tools for filtering the events with event hashtags, timelines and an adjustable time frame.

We also had our own event at the festival: the MapLab, where we would be drawing and updating the map throughout the night, and the visitors would be able to see

the creation of the map in action.

User Map Lab

Visitors

Public screens

Map Lab Screens

iPad

Server

T E C H N I C A L F L O W

Many visitors were eager to talk with us about the app during the evening. This image shows us in action, wearing (appropriately enough) lab coats.

The living art map was shown on many of the digital screens in Helsinki, including trams, metros and ”The Wall” right in front of the Kamppi shopping centre.

We created a data visualization editor with Processing from scratch to tweak the visuals in real-time. We also let the visitors try the editor and tried to fulfill their artistic data visions.

Some examples

S O H O W D I D I T W O R K O U T ?

• Over 8 000 downloads, 75% during the actual night

• Noted by the media (Helsingin Sanomat, MTV3, Metro, HBL)

• A successful marketing stretch for both Helsinki Festival and Taiste

• The content strategy was to be creative but in a way that was in tune with the event itself — succeeding in this was the biggest triumph of the project

Watch the video

T U O M A S J A L A M O Communications Designer @TuomasJalamo

C H E E R S !

V I L L E K A I S L A Creative Director

@vkaisla

Photos: Anni Porrasmäki

M I K K O H A R J U Technology Director

@maharj