This quarter, Creative Labs offered five projects that tested and pushed skill levels to new heights. Within a short span of nine weeks, teams worked tirelessly to turn their ideas into products, making critical paradigm shifts and pushing aside any setbacks. These five innovative and inspirational projects perfectly sum up this successful quarter, and Creative Labs is proud to have them added to our achievements!

1. Quotebook

Spearheaded as a mini-startup, Quotebook is an advanced iOS application that helps users store, retrieve and walk through their memories using quotes. The goal of this app is to create a frictionless experience to cater to a very personal experience. This app ushers in a new culture of effortlessly noting down quotes from friends and family. It bridges the gap between utility, human interaction, and technology.

Throughout the quarter, the Quotebook team meticulously curated the digital design, color scheme and UI/UX of this app. Color association based on the location/weather could help trigger a memory of that quote and the context in which it was made. Horizontal scrolling proved much more user-friendly and effective instead of vertical-scrolling. These were all part of the brainstorm and design-think necessary in creating this app.

Quotebook Team: Jahan Cherian(Project Lead), Sanketh Hegde, Brian Shih, Lawrence Chen, Steven Yuan, Erika Kehrwald, Anisa Bashiri, Tiffany Taimoorazy

2. A Day in LA

A Day in LA is a browser-based, interactive user experience that illustrates a short satirical narrative on LA culture (that includes overly commercialized yoga studios, the famed Hollywood Walk of Fame and fancy, Instagram-able roof-top bars, and hipster cafes). This narrative struck the perfect balance between subtle satire + ambient immersion + usability + humor. The goal of this app is to help introduce LA culture to travelers and bring a refreshing take on LA to culture to locals.

Throughout the quarter, A Day in LA team divided and conquered the process of storyboarding, designing and developing the project. All the narrative graphics and animation showed a great attention to detail, and the overall development included the integration of “recommendation” features like scrolling over an object would bring you the top results for places related to an object. An example was scrolling over a radio object on the screen popped up a small window of the record stores in LA.

This web experience lets users experience Los Angeles through the medium that this generation knows best. With breathtaking design and flawless integration, this web experience combines the best of illustration and web animation.

A Day in LA Team: Rishabh Aggarwal (Project Lead)

3. Synaesthetic

Synaesthetic is a WebGL-based, live music visualizer. Pick any song and watch it transform into graphical interpretation. Through spheres, orbits, and stars, the audience gets an almost hypnotic but mesmerizing view of traveling through space. The Synaesthetic team combined a broad range of skills from animated graphics design to backend development. Bass and treble notes were processed to react with the animation in perfect synchronicity. The blend of complementing effects and abrupt color changes brings together a musical experience that is likely to blend auditory and visual senses.

Synaesthetic Team: Nina Ling (Project Lead)

4. Photoshop + Philosophy

Photoshop + Philosophy is a project that brings together a seemingly unlikely combination but in actual fact, makes for terrific inspiration. The team showcased the posters they had created and compiled over the quarter using different effects in Photoshop. The team was able to turn language, puns, and everyday mundanities into literal visual representation through the combination of typography, color, and space. The team certainly taught the audience a thing or two about not taking life too seriously, and to also to experience life with flair, passion, and humor.

Photoshop + Philosophy Team: Ruth Shaffer (Project Lead)

5. Get Kinect’d

Get Kinect’d is an interactive installment that uses the Microsoft Kinect to create Cyber-physical interactions by analyzing the movements of one’s body to create a beautiful display on a screen. The idea for this project was meant to create a fun and novel space for LA hackers to take their mind off the stress and interact with other hackers. By utilizing the unique interface, the projector emphasizes the emotions of Adrenaline, Curiosity, and Zen to create a multi-level experience for the user. Each theme exhibited distinctive gestures, interactions and displays which made each theme a unique user experience.

Get Kinect’d Team: Anshul Aggarwal (Project Lead), Rosalind Chang (Project Lead), Kristi Richter, Rohan Kumar, Justin Liu, Jessica Cao, Sujin Ahn, Nihar Tamhankar, Jaehyung Park

Creative Labs Winter 2017 Demo Day was originally published in Creative Labs on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

As one of the newest S.T.A.T.I.O.N (acronym for Scientific Training and Tactical Intelligence Operative Network )agent recruit, I feel equipped and qualified to let you know my training experience.

The entire exhibition was the reverse engineering of all the Avengers and I was pleasantly surprised by how sciencey and interactive the entire exhibition was. An in-depth scientific explanation on how each of the Avengers got their powers, how they function before and after they got their powers and other fascinating facts were provided to the recruits. The science fiction behind the Avengers were so compelling that it was hard to distinguish with real science!

The futuristic exhibition boards were super wordy and technical which will be fun reads for the teens and adults (but probably would not be as interesting for young children). There are plenty of photo ops for the young kids to keep entertained. The entire exhibition should take about an hour to complete but I URGE you not to rush through it.

These are the top 10 things I urge you to look out for:

1. S.T.A.T.I.O.N mobile training device app

To make the most of the experience, all recruits should download a free Avengers S.T.A.T.I.O.N mobile training device application (available both on iOS and android) prior to entering the exhibition. On top of that, bringing a pair of headphones/earphones would be useful because the primary feature of the app are the audio notes. Because I did not know the importance of bringing a pair of headphones, I had my audio notes play on the softest speaker volume and placed it close to my ear (which was pretty troublesome to be honest). After the exhibition, I realized I should not have saved the $5 to rent a mobile device + headphones.

The narrator (Friday, a natural language interface designed by Tony Stark) provided ample amount of information and personnel files about the Avengers. I spent a bulk of time listening to the audio notes before reading the wordy exhibition boards, which often had repeated information. The audio notes can get very long so I wished there was a x2 speed function for parts that I felt were not as interesting to me. Overall, the audio notes certainly enhanced my experience because it just felt like I had a personal guide throughout the entire exhibition!

The best part about the app, was the fact that the rooms were somehow synched to your phone’s bluetooth. The app could track which area you were in and allowed you to launch the audio notes for that particular area. After each area, I looked forward to answering the assessment questions (I wish there was more) to test my knowledge about the Avengers. Overall, I scored a measly 88/100 because I lost all my points in the assessment on Vision, Black Widow and Hawkeye (all 3 of which are my least interested Avengers).

2. Captain America’s Rebirth Pod

Remember that scene in the movie where Steve Rogers was injected with the super soldier serum and emerged as Captain America? This defining scene made this particular artifact from the exhibition a stand out. As the de facto leader of the Avengers, the Captain America exhibition room was the first room recruits got to explore. The rebirth pod was one of the first artifacts that certainly had that “WOW” factor (or maybe because Captain America was my personal favorite). It was kept at a distance from the recruits. Near enough to examine the details of the rebirth pod but not near enough to get a chance to lie down in it.

3. Captain America’s Harley

This was the perfect photo op, and I felt so much better about not getting a photo op in the rebirth pod. Hop on and feel like a bad ass.

4. Why is the Hulk green?

In Dr Bruce Banner’s bio lab room, take the time to find out why the Hulk behaves the way he does. This peculiar character always left me wondering why Bruce is so mild and calm but the Hulk is so angry and destructive. This exhibition room equipped me with the relevant knowledge in a much more interactive and interesting way than wikipedia can ever accomplish. (clue: It has to do with the evolution of his brain wiring)

5. Ant Man direction arrows

While all recruits are encouraged to keep their eyes peeled on the exhibits at eye level, I was glad I had my eyes on the ground at one particular moment — walking into the Ant Man/Falcon/Scarlet Witch room. These direction arrows disappear if you aren’t paying attention!

6. Malekith life size figure

I was greeted into the next room with a burst of cold air, which scared me and left a kink in my neck. The entire exhibition had a clear emphasis on the superheroes, but certainly was not lazy with the details about Marvel’s supervillains. A life size figure of Malekith (leader of the dark elves in Thor: A Dark World) was put in a temperature and pressure controlled glass exhibit. The realism of the figurine and his eyes fixated on me, I was inching and limping (from the kink in my neck) to the next exhibition room.

7. Bifrost teleport from Asgard to Earth

In the Thor exhibition room, I was greeted with a 180 degree screen. This screen featured information about Thor, Loki, Asgard and the sci-fi behind many extraterrestrial objects such as the Mjölnir and the bifrost bridge. And if recruits do not rush through this room and stay long enough, they will enjoy a treat to teleport from Asgard to Earth (an effect using the 180 degree screen).

8. Worthy to lift Mjölnir?

Another perfect photo op! This is not a test of strength but a test of your worthiness to lift Thor’s hammer. Not a single recruit from my orientation group managed to lift it up. But pretending to lift it up still made for a good picture.

9. Take flight as Iron Man

Test the strength of your eye power by leaning your forehead on a cushion (which they kindly sanitize after each recruit) and lock in your eyes on a moving target. I was pretty stoked to try and feel how it was like to have Iron Man’s flying/shooting abilities. It was a bonus that I achieved an above average score.

10. Defeat Ultron

After completing all the quizzes on the S.T.A.T.I.O.N app, all the recruits got to finish off the exhibition with an ultimate test — defeating Ultron. In this challenge, our apps on our mobile phones were synched onto a big screen and we all got assigned to become one of the Avengers (I got to be Iron Man). I had to point my phone to a huge five-panel screen and tapped furiously to blast the villains dead. It was a tad too childish for the adults but it was still fun while it lasted.

One of the newest installment on the Las Vegas strip happens to be a family-friendly attraction. It has a starkly (pun intended) different vibe than any attraction on the strip. Marvel Avengers S.T.A.T.I.O.N lies on the south side of the strip, tucked in Treasure Island Hotel. I highly recommend this for all ages.

Every project needs a hook. Find it.

UCLA Creative Labs had the rare opportunity of having Executive Producer, Nick Mountford and Interactive Director, Michael Anthony from Active Theory as guest speakers this evening. Active Theory is a creative development production company with award-winning works such as Pottermore, Halo 5 Visualizer, Google Racer, and Coca Cola FIFA Shoot out. Together, they delivered a motivational and riveting presentation about sheer determination and passion. The young and accomplished gentlemen shared their invaluable experience and advice sincerely to an audience of sixty people.

In the rapidly advancing and evolving nature of the technological world, Active Theory has to adapt constantly. They showcased their impressive creation of Javascript framework, Hydra, which moves past the standard and backdated Adobe Flash. Hydra has evolved to become the core of Active Theory’s coding structure to create projects that are animated and expressive.

‘When we use Hydra, we grow with it and add new features as the web adds new features’ Michael said. Hydra is continuously being improved and inspired by new and different types of languages, he maintains. This is a real testament to the company’s desire to remain highly competitive.

In every single project that Nick and Michael went on to showcase, there is a distinct and memorable hook that completely transforms an ordinary user experience to an extraordinary one.

‘That hook, that core mechanic, we always try and identify it when we start the project’ Nick said.

‘A hook may be a way of navigating through a site, like a unique but simple way, clever transitions, some sort of effects to bring people from one part of the experience to another, or a totally new type of interaction’ Michael said.

With works like the Emmy award winning JFK Library “Clouds over Cuba” (with the hook of a timeline that corresponds to the time and date in the film), Under Amour advertising campaign “I Will What I Want” (with the hook of real-time 3D tweets appearing on a wall inside a video), and “Pottermore” (as the WebGL BAZOOKA), Active Theory has indisputably proven to be a leader in the field of web technology and creative experiences.

What they have produced with a small team of ten self-starters is truly remarkable. But what really pulls Active Theory apart from their competitors is their integrity to the craft of the creative process in digital web production.

‘A lot of our competitors try and take on every project they possibly can just for the sake of growing. But we are constantly knocking back work, and picking and choosing our clients to make the best digital creative experience’ Nick said.

Their 45-minute presentation left the audience feeling incredibly inspired and excited about what is to come in their own digital design/production journey.

Hard work. Patience. Hold on to that desire to create something phenomenal and groundbreaking. It will be worthwhile.

Active Theory / Creative Digital Experiences

Speaker Series: Active Theory — Pushing Digital Experiences was originally published in Creative Labs on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.