Yellow Design

Creative agency, Yellow Design, wanted to explore how it could use immersive technology to support its aerospace clients. Engaging with Digital Catapult’s Immersive Lab Northern Ireland gave it the opportunity to get hands-on with the latest immersive tech to develop prototypes. Demonstrating these prototypes has resulted in new business and a new service the agency can offer.

Acquiring immersive skills can be a barrier to market entry for startups

Although Yellow Design has a good knowledge of 3D content production software packages, it was aware of a technical gap in its skill set. As a small agency, it couldn’t afford research and development time but was keen to see how it could embrace immersive technology and adapt its business model.

Cost of tech limits development

Immersive systems are expensive and the cost of buying all the different headsets can make it difficult for small businesses to develop immersive content that works on multiple platforms. This is a challenge that can really limit the ability of smaller companies to compete.

Digital Catapult Northern Ireland event inspires Yellow Design

While attending an AR/VR event in Dublin in May 2018, Yellow Design watched a presentation by Nigel McAlpine, Immersive Lead, Digital Catapult Northern Ireland and started a relationship that would lead to new business opportunities.

Yellow Design’s CEO Michael McGlade explains further “After the presentation, Nigel displayed a real passion for immersive technologies and how it could assist the likes of the aerospace sector. Mentioning that Thompson Aero is a client of ours, we both realised that we have the same objective, recognising how AR/VR could be of benefit.”

Digital Catapult’s Immersive Lab makes a wide range of immersive technology available for prototyping and demonstrating new ideas

Digital Catapult’s Immersive Lab Northern Ireland gives organisations of all sizes the opportunity to get hands-on experience with the latest immersive technology including augmented reality, virtual reality and mixed reality enabling them to demonstrate, innovate and test their own business ideas and research.

Supported by the Department for the Economy, Digital Catapult and Belfast City Council, the Immersive Lab Northern Ireland is one of a number of Immersive Labs across the UK with other locations including London, Brighton and North East Tees Valley.

Thanks to the support of Nigel McAlpine and Digital Catapult’s Immersive Lab in Belfast, Yellow Design was able to explore the potential and possibilities of AR/VR hardware and has been able to develop some innovative solutions in a short period of time. “We realised that there are natural synergies between 3D Studio Max, the 3D graphics package and Unity the games engine and were immediately excited at the potential that this technology could offer our clients” adds Michael.

Yellow Design wins £175K of immersive projects

Although Yellow Design had only been investigating this technology for a matter of weeks, it has already secured fresh business, as Michael explains: “to date we have presented our immersive prototypes to a range of companies both in NI and in London and are delighted to say that we have gained fresh business for at least two Immersive projects, off the back of this recent engagement with Digital Catapult.”

Yellow Design is now working with Urban, specialists in Media Walls on an AR project and Cubis who are experts in cable management solutions for utility companies and they continue to develop their exciting Aerospace VR project.