A Data Visualization Sculpture
Most of us think of DoorDash as a company that brings you your food. But the real essence of the brand is about the human element and the millions of connections that happen everyday between Dashers, merchants and DoorDash users.
For this project, VTProDesign teamed up with GMUNK and Tool of North America to create a powerful and artful sculpture that could live as an evergreen platform in the lobby of their new SF Headquarters, and was entitled the DoorDash Mosaic.
The Concept
For this execution, the team was inspired by grid-based graphic design and applying that to an architectural screen platform, invoking the characteristics of a sculptural mosaic of emissive light. The approach was to take a multitude of screens and present them in a richly detailed grid array, utilizing the negative space between the screens as the defining boundaries for the content framework, allowing the assignment of color and form within the grid delineations.
The approach was to always have the center screens be able to showcase the live-action and generative content in the form of photos, videos, and data visualizations – while the surrounding grid units would sample from the center screens and present single-diode color washes to form a complimentary container of color framing the primary content.
This created a reliance on the audience to piece together images broken up in the grid, as they intentionally presented the photos, video and data visualizations in a more experimental fashion to encourage the audience to piece the information together in their own way throughout the Mosaic Grid. The goal with this approach was to encourage a higher audience engagement and a fresher way to present heavy amounts of content on a screen-based platform.
The Content
Every aspect of the content was generative – meaning that no two moments in the content program would ever be the same. From how the mosaic grid was populated with photos and videos with a random seed placement, to the real-time data visualizations presenting the living data behind the brands activity, to the library of color palettes applied as permutations of display algorithms – the key to the content was variety, to always be surprised and discover something new with unexpected permutations of variables.
The content featured two data visualizations, entitled City Pulse and Urban Path and an interactive mode called Self-Portrait mode.
City Pulse
City Pulse illustrated how the featured city comes alive with vibrant activity via an animated heat map. Through data, it tells the story of how DoorDash empowers local economies in these urban locales. As transactions and deliveries increase, the heat map activation grows and changes with saturated colors and graphic detail, reflecting the human connections made possible through the DoorDash platform. Yamashita took custom maps provided by GMUNK team and created geometry subdivision system for the each city. The active area gets more subdivided taking the Dasher’s data.
Urban Path
Urban Path illustrated the routes of Dashers as they complete their deliveries throughout the featured city. In this visualization, the entire city grid becomes systems of traveling line work, color-coded based on duration and lifespan to represent the entirety of the delivery route. The resulting visualization is an artistic urban bloom of activity that highlights how closely local communities are connected within the DoorDash platform.
Self-Portrait
Self-Portrait mode, which was an artful, interactive mode where lobby guests can connect with each other within the Mosaic. It represented the ideals that DoorDash stands for: inclusion, connection, access and possibility.
Yamashita lead the team to create the interactive system to transform sensor data into mosaic silhouette that seamlessly move from TV screens to LED mosaic panels using TouchDesigner.
Role
Technical Director at VTProDesign
Awards
FWA Awards of the Day, 2020
Credits
Director: GMUNK
Production Company: Tool of North America
President: Dustin Califf
Executive Producer: Adam Baskin
Producer: Rebeca Diaz
Production Design: VTProDesign
Chief Creative Officer: Michael Fullman
Producer: Paul Elsberg
Chief Technology Officer: Harry Souders
TouchDesigner Lead: Matt Wachter
TouchDesigner: Aki Yamashita
TouchDesigner: Crystal Jow
Architectural Designer: Anass Benhachmi
Senior Creative Technologist: Colin Honigman
Creative Technologist: Dom Ricci
Production Director: Hayk Khanjian
Production Manager: Nicolas Yernazian
Content Designer: Toros Kose
Case Study Director: Andrew Curtis
Case Study Director: Aaron Marcellino
Case Study Photography: Bradley G Munkowitz