Volkswagen Social Configurator
2010
Description
AKQA were tasked with creating a new global car configurator for Volkswagen, along with a new digital business strategy to set Volkswagen apart from it’s competitors – and to do it in just 6 months. As lead designer on this project I was in charge of defining concept and creative direction of the project, managing a small team of designers and working closely with front-end-development to build the fully HTML5 configuration site.
The configurator features social recommendations and statistical data to help users make choices while configuring, based on the actions of their fellow drivers. The HTML5 application site pushed technological boundaries with a fully interactive and dynamic interface that works not only in browsers but on an iPad and iPhone. The interface carries the user from research through to purchase at a dealer in one seamless experience.
Since its launch in November 2010, over 2,000,000 drivers (as of June 2011) have configured a car (with over 300,000 on iPad), and the project as a whole was featured in WIRED Magazine’s February 2011 Social Commerce edition. As a direct result of this project, Volkswagen have now become AKQA’s largest client.
Lead designer: Neil Gurr – Designer: Nick Mulley – Creative Direction: Chris May
The configurator features social recommendations and statistical data to help users make choices while configuring, based on the actions of their fellow drivers. The HTML5 application site pushed technological boundaries with a fully interactive and dynamic interface that works not only in browsers but on an iPad and iPhone. The interface carries the user from research through to purchase at a dealer in one seamless experience.
Since its launch in November 2010, over 2,000,000 drivers (as of June 2011) have configured a car (with over 300,000 on iPad), and the project as a whole was featured in WIRED Magazine’s February 2011 Social Commerce edition. As a direct result of this project, Volkswagen have now become AKQA’s largest client.
Lead designer: Neil Gurr – Designer: Nick Mulley – Creative Direction: Chris May
Fields
Lead designer, User interface design
- Volkswagen Social Configurator
Website application 
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A proactive pitch to Volkswagen, this is an iPad app that allows customers to continue their experience after configuring a car online.User Interface Design, Interaction Design, Concept2011 -
After successfully delivering several projects, AKQA were required to present a vision of how we could expand on our success and create a unified set of ideas to drive Volkswagen's global digital strategy forward.
The concepts, although intended for global markets, were conceived as a complete lifecycle for customers in the US. This allowed us to concentrate on creating compelling strategies for each step of the customers engagement.
I worked hand in hand with Daniel Coppock, a senior User Experience Architect who has been my partner for the last year, to come up with a complete set of concepts. Together we covered the roles of strategy, concept, design, user experience and copy. Working to create a pitch deck that senior partners at AKQA could present to the client.
I am pleased to say that the pitch went well and secured the Volkswagen account for the next 2 years making it AKQA's biggest account alongside Nike.
The work you see is a small selection of concepts from the pitch creative. They cover several stages of the user journey from initial engagement, through discovery, refinement, contact, purchase and finally continued engagement through to repurchase.Strategy, Concept2010 -
This image was made for a pitch. The brief was to create a thriller inspired poster design to promote a treasure hunt competition. It was a great little project to get as I love old movie posters. I decided to do a bit of mashup of 50's Saul Bass inspired posters with a bit of grindhouse trash.Illustration2011 -
Thanks to mjarnum for the stock:
http://mjranum-stock.deviantart.comDigital art2011 -
A website and brand created for a young up-and-coming racing driver. The goal was to create a bold site to entice potential sponsors but one which was simple enough to be maintained by the driver's manager using the WordPress platform.
I was in charge of all creative elements for the build from logo to image treatment.Lead design, User interface design2011 -
Active Kids is a yearly voucher promotion run by Sainsbury's. The site exists to inform about the way the campaign works and for school's and groups to order sports equipment.
Lead designer: Neil Gurr – Senior design: Simon Scott – Creative Direction: Chris MayLead designer, User interface design2010 -
A campaign created for Sainsbury's. The campaign was about home baking so a homely hand-made concept was created for the piece.
Lead design: Neil Gurr – Art Director: Mark Chapple – Creative Direction: James HiltonLead designer, Illustration2009 -
A new brand for my portfolio site. An abstract monograph of my sites initials.Logo2011 -
A project commissioned by Yellow Pages digital arm, Yell. They required a design direction for their mobile search application. The work involved designing the interface elements and the user interactions.
Lead designer: Neil Gurr | Creative Direction: Tiina BjorkUser Interface Design, Designer2010 -
I had been reading a bit about Jungian archetypes and I fancied playing around with the idea of the standard rebel archetype, your Che Guevara so to speak. I took a picture of a model standing in a classis pose and set about work creating a rebel themed image with simulated paint and screenprinting.Illustration2008 -
This was a personal project to see how well I could replicate that screen printed gig poster look and feel using only Photoshop and Illustrator as my tools.Illustration2009 -
A logo made for a friend's Vietnamese restaurant. They wanted a contemporary logo. I took inspiration from the Vietnamese language which uses an awful lot of different accents. These accents inspired me to create sharp triangular forms.Logo2006 -
This was a personal project. I had the idea of an all black poster to represent the Johnny Cash song 'Man in Black'. I decided a spot varnish would work well.
I then set about customising a font to remove as much detail as possible without loosing its function. I felt this would represent the essence of the song well.Typography, Experiments2007
