By now, most individuals within the Philadelphia space have in all probability seen not less than one billboard that includes the Independence Blue Cross (IBX) 2024 advert marketing campaign, that includes individuals posed on or beside giant, blue, three-dimensional IBX letters.
These letters are usually not a digital design — they’re actual. In our adverts, the persons are interacting with precise bodily IBX letters. We’ve additionally despatched the IBX letters to numerous occasions, the place the general public can work together with them, too.
And after they’re not in use, they reside in our foyer and elsewhere at our 1901 Market Avenue headquarters.
The letters themselves are already fairly spectacular. However Calvin Tan and Marie Thresher from the IBX Inventive Providers group have discovered an entire new software for the letters. They’ve labored out the way to mission photographs or movies onto them in three dimensions utilizing a way known as “projection mapping.” Right here’s how that occurred.
The Thought
Projection mapping has been round for a while. It has been used to create every little thing from the singing busts at Disney’s Haunted Mansion to the beloved vacation gentle present at Philadelphia’s Metropolis Corridor.
Calvin Tan, a lead web communication coordinator on the IBX Inventive Providers group (in addition to an completed magician), had seen projection mapping being utilized in numerous contexts, and puzzled if there was a means for IBX to reap the benefits of this know-how.
He approached his colleague Marie Thresher, Inventive Providers’ senior movement graphics designer, with the concept of projecting video onto the three-dimensional IBX letters for the 2023 IBX Well being Care Discussion board. “I noticed I’d want somebody like Marie to assist me with this,” says Tan. “I began speaking to her about it, and she or he obtained actually excited.”
The Course of
Tan researched what software program can be required; Thresher created the animation. Then, the 2 associates pitched the concept to the Inventive Providers management group.
Marc Balara, director of Inventive Providers, embraced the concept and authorized the acquisition of the software program. “Marc was actually giving us the inexperienced gentle to be taught it and check it and see if it really works,” Tan famous. “His assist on buying the software program and permitting us to be taught it was enormous.” The price of the software program was an funding, however dealing with the projection mapping in-house was far cheaper than hiring an out of doors firm to do it.
Chris Counter, supervisor of digital and graphic design at IBX, commented, “All of us obtained tremendous excited as a result of it’s a enjoyable, immersive means of storytelling and it captivates individuals.” He added, “We have now actually good management that acknowledges new know-how, or simply helps issues we’re enthusiastic about doing. They’re keen to place the funding into it.”
The letters had been 5.5 ft excessive by 11.6 ft extensive. It was vital to map the projection to their precise measurements or else the animation wouldn’t be efficient.
Tan and Thresher elicited assist from a number of departments at IBX, particularly the audiovisual and constructing services groups. “Collaborating with different groups was important; we needed to lean on one another for lots,” Tan commented. “Everybody was actually enthusiastic about it from the start. Different departments had been keen to assist.”
The Outcomes
