Come Find Me

Terry Crews & Ken Harvey

Sharing a quote from our client Terry Crews: "20 years ago, 1995 to be exact, Ken Harvey and I were teammates on the NFL’s Washington Redskins. Ken came to me with a brilliant idea of a book he wrote for his two very young sons, Anthony and Marcus. The book was to be a first time reader, and feature the boys in an imaginative game of hide and seek."

J.Lo and Bad Bunny Video

G2 Productions

When G2 Productions reached out to us to create their first AR experience, they wanted an augmented reality easter egg that would take everyone by surprise at the end of each of the music videos they produced. The first music video we had to work with was Jennifer Lopez’s and Bad Bunny’s collaboration, “Te Gusté”.

We decided to elaborate a beautiful and shiny disco ball which has the ability to spin as the user swipes it with their finger. When the disco ball reaches a certain speed, it explodes, and confetti as well as G2’s logo and ours come out in real time 3D. To enjoy, watch “Te Gusté” and then at the end of the video, wait for the disco ball marker to come out. Pause the video and then launch the G2 Productions app. Point your device to the market and spin the disco ball!!

Augmented Wine Cover

Wine Enthusiast

Wine Enthusiast Magazine asked us to build their first-ever Augmented Reality magazine cover. The task was to create an application that would launch a digital experience when the magazine cover was detected. In collaboration with the magazine and award-winning digital artist Pete Bollinger, we elected to choose a sci-fi interface that brought Peter’s video to life by creating a 3D version of it that is displayed in different layers as if they were coming right out of the magazine. The experience ends with a very futuristic hologram of the actual cover. Check out the full Wine Enthusiast article here

Sangiovese AR

Carhartt

We partnered with the legendary Carhartt family and their beautiful winery, Carhartt Vineyard, to bring to life the first ever augmented reality wine application in Santa Barbara county. More specifically, in the beautiful Santa Ynez Valley. An idea surged within our company to change the wine tasting room experience and offer an innovative and informative application which could be enjoyed inside but also, outside the wine tasting room. A floating bottle of Sangiovese more than meets the eye.

Monarch AR

Monarch Reign Swimwear

Celebrity fashion designer Ashley Busch, wife of famed NASCAR champion Kurt Busch, chose us to launch the first AR project for her new brand, Monarch Reign (www.monarchreign.com). The luxurious swim and accessories brand needed us to bring her logo to life in a beautiful and entertaining way. The color rich butterfly interaction, mixed with the subtle softness of their flight deliver a brand message like no other; one of thoughtful design and love for clean and interesting aesthetics.

Face Filters + Lenses

Multiple clients

Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram have opened up a brand new way to reach current and potential customers for brands: filters and lenses. At Augmented Island Studios we can help you develop a filter/lens strategy that is significant, aesthetically pleasing and which tells a story about your brand and product. There are an innumerable amount of ways to take advantage of these new branded assets and the possibilities are only expanding as time passes. Below are a few examples of face filters/lenses we have created for some of our clients.

The Journey AR Murals

The Short North Arts District

The Short North Arts District in Columbus, Ohio hired us to augment what was to become the largest augmented reality mural in the world; three walls with a total of 11,000 ft2. Beautifully painted by artists Eric Skotnes and Ryan Safarti, “The Journey” has been one of our most memorable projects yet. Working with such talented muralists and with such a massive surface was thrilling! If you feel like trying The Journey's augmented reality on your computer screen, please download the app here for iOS and here for Android. Then launch and point your camera at the photos below to launch the experience (note: different computer screens and lighting can affect the performance of the augmented reality).

Surf Prescriptions Web AR

Surf Prescriptions

Surf Prescriptions by Jeff ‘Doc’ Lausch, is a global surfboard design and shaping company based in Huntington Beach, California. Doc has been on the forefront of mixing art design and technology in surfboard construction for decades. Reinventing daily is Surf Prescriptions' mantra and it's the reason Doc continues to stay at the forefront of surfboard building. When he came to us for a web and tech transformation, we knew exactly what had to be done. No other surfboard company in the world had offered WebAR yet and he wanted to fulfill more orders while still doing so in a customized way. Studying Doc’s brand identity and understanding his business goals helped us work together so that we could innovate on this new layer of his business - custom surfboards online + AR. At the end of this project Doc had a new and redesigned website and every single one of his surfboards is now available to see in WebAR (no app downloads needed). Click here to experience Surf Prescriptions now: www.surfprescriptions.com.

Conservation International’s Hawaiʻi AR Experiences

Conservation International

The bluestripe snapper, or Ta‘ape, can be quickly identified by its striking electric blue stripes contrasted with lemon-yellow skin, making it a stunning tropical fish. Don’t let its good looks fool you though, the Taʻape are considered an invasive species in Hawaiʻi. Taʻape naturally school in the hundreds and even thousands, and compete with native species while causing economic loss for local fishers.

Taʻape were first introduced to the eastern shores of the island of Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi more than six decades ago from the South Pacific. Originally intended to provide additional fishing opportunities and food sources for Hawaiʻi, Taʻape quickly became established and now spread across the 1,500-mile Hawaiian archipelago. Conservation International Hawaiʻi and local partners are launching a campaign to show how smart choices in seafood harvesting and consumption can benefit everyone, including Nature. Consumers are seeing that they can eat a tasty meal while supporting the local economy, improving island food security, and removing an invasive species. It’s a win, win, win.

“Taʻape have proliferated in Hawaiʻi for over 60 years, yet we haven’t found a solution for reducing their populations. If Taʻape are thriving and are here to stay, we have a tremendous opportunity to address multiple needs of society and the environment by increasing the sustainable harvest of these species,” said Jhana Young of Conservation International’s Hawaiʻi team.

Conservation International Hawaiʻi partnered with Portland, Oregon augmented and virtual reality studio, Augmented Island Studios, to develop two augmented reality experiences designed to raise awareness about this urgent situation:

1. When visiting the Ta‘ape informational website at: https://www.conservation.org/stories/what-is-the-taape, you will have the ability to see an animated 3D model of the fish, which can be launched in augmented reality by double tapping on the cube icon. In a matter of seconds, the fish comes to life right in your environment, and you have the ability to see it from every angle and read important notes about it.

2. The second experience can be launched right off of the Conservation International Hawaiʻi Instagram account at: @ci_hawaii (https://www.instagram.com/ci_hawaii/). When you arrive on their gallery, tap the face filter icon, which sits between the Instagram tv and tag icons on the gallery’s horizontal menu bar. Once you are there, tap on the Ta‘ape filter. The fun begins when you realize you must open your mouth to eat as many fish as you can!

“Using augmented reality to help such an important cause is very meaningful to us. It’s a wonderful opportunity to have a direct and positive impact on the Hawaiian ecosystem with the use of technology. When Conservation International’s Niquole Esters and Matthew Ramsey educated us on how the local fishing community, culinary community, and oceans could benefit by eating more invasive Taʻape, we immediately went to work. Conservation International had planned a brilliant campaign around promoting this fish through the seafood supply chain, and our AR idea fit perfectly into their plan,” said Augmented Island Studio’s CEO, Enrique Sanchez-Rivera.

Yerba Mate Step by Step

Yerba Mate

Motion graphics are becoming extremely valuable as an informational media source. Data, product features, stories, tutorials, and other information, when presented in an animated video, result in higher engagement and a more successful transfer of knowledge.

Below is a motion graphic we created for a yerba mate company from California. Since yerba mate is not as common in North America as it is in South America, the company needed to show consumers how to prepare and drink their product. The preparation of this tea-like beverage is very important and our client needed to transfer this knowledge to their potential customers in a fast, fun, and non-threatening manner.

COVID-19 Vaccine Motion Graphic

Yale School of Public Health

Written by Denise Meyer, Yale School of Public Health

It has been generations since a world event enveloped us all in a shared trauma that motivates so many people to volunteer their time, shift career priorities and do their part. The COVID-19 pandemic’s lack of respect for borders and boundaries has also led to innovative and collaborative new partnerships for public health and the Yale community.

One example is the animated motion graphic public service announcement, mRNA Vaccines- How the COVID mRNA vaccines work, addressing COVID-19 vaccination that involved individuals from four Yale professional schools and creative talent from both Colombia and the United States.

The project was started by Colombian entrepreneur Enrique Sánchez-Rivera, who was frustrated by the high volume of misinformation and lack of attention to science over the last four years that created serious problems domestically and abroad. Sánchez-Rivera, who will be attending the Yale School of Management’s Global Executive Leadership program in the fall of 2021, is founder and CEO of Augmented Island Studios, a virtual and augmented reality development studio based in Portland, Oregon. While waiting for the executive leadership program to start, Sánchez-Rivera has already engaged with the Yale community — studying French with doctoral candidate Walid Bouchakour and participating in the Yale Blended Reality group as a speaker.

Enrique Sánchez-Rivera

When the pandemic started, the number of conspiracy theories about the disease increased exponentially, Sánchez-Rivera said. “I have been extremely concerned for those who are at high risk and for communities who are highly vulnerable,” he said. “In addition, my concern grew deeper when I started hearing folks from all socioeconomic backgrounds believing in wild and inaccurate stories and not in science.”

Knowing Yale’s culture of creativity and collaboration, Sánchez-Rivera reached out to the Yale School of Public Health about producing an educational motion-graphic public service announcement about COVID-19.

The Augmented Island Studios Team

Yale School of Public Health Lecturer Andrew Heinrich, J.D., M.Phil, quickly agreed to be the scientific and public health advisor for the project and wrote the script. Heinrich is a new faculty member in the Yale School of Public Health’s Department of Health Policy and Management, where he specializes in regulatory affairs, global health and behavioral sciences. He also has deep roots in philanthropy and community development as the founder of Project Rousseau, an educational nonprofit; and through his affiliations with the Haskell Foundation, PARC Adventures Monaco and other ventures. “The research we do at YSPH has a real-world impact, and I have the great privilege of being a part of that translation between research and practice–and back to subsequent research — on a daily basis.”

Stan Mathabane is a theater sound designer studying in the Yale Drama School and CEO of SunSon Records. Adapting to physical distancing, he became increasingly involved in extended reality (XR) design of 3D sound. Through an online networking channel at Yale that brings together people working in blended reality, Mathabane met Sánchez-Rivera who recognized the synergy of his work with the augmented reality work being produced by his company. Mathabane wrote and recorded the background music for the vaccine video.

A native of Colombia, Sánchez-Rivera is acutely aware of the international need for accurate and accessible information on COVID vaccines. Aiming for a video that could be shared in every corner of the world, he currently has versions in English, Spanish, French and Arabic. Through closed-captioning, other translations are possible in the future.

Walid Bouchakour, a third-year Ph.D. candidate in the Yale Department of French, helped with the French and Arabic translations, and Craig Osterbrock, also a Ph.D. student, helped with the Spanish version.

Walid Bouchakour

Born and raised in Algiers, Bouchakour worked as a journalist before coming to study at Yale. He, too, is deeply concerned about the misinformation, disinformation and conspiracy theories circulating online about the COVID vaccine, not only in the U.S., but also in France, Africa and the Arab world.

“Something has to be done to fight back this wave of misinformation. And this project was the perfect occasion for me to do my part,” says Bouchakour. “I think that a short, animated video with a simple and clear message is the perfect format. Most of the time, you have either a very good, long and complex science-based article or short, impactful videos spreading misinformation. So why not create a short, impactful video to spread factual scientific information?”