Oliver Vanes





Cartier Virtual Flagship

Cartier - jeweller of kings, king of jewellers - has an illustrious 150 year plus history that has traversed the world, but what is the next step in their journey?

Across an intense two month incubator in collaboration with Dubai Future Foundation, Emperia were tasked with concepting a bespoke solution to this question. Delving deep into the brand, it’s history and culture in the Gulf region, I led a team of designers into crafting a 3 - 4 space experience. All culminating in the presentation of an extensive shoppable experience accessible through web and mobile, shown to Richemont group and members of the UAE governement in the country’s biggest auditorium.

The result is a virtual extension of the company’s distinguished brand, beginning from their famous red Cartier packaging and expanding into limitless digital experiences accessobile from each iconic box.                

Art Direction, Creative Direction, Concepting, Experience Design
2022








The future of luxury retail

The following pages show some highlights from various virtual experiences and online interactive stores made while at Emperia.

They are designed in a similar format to the aformentioned Cartier experience, though each has it’s own story, experience design and art direction, respective of the brand and it’s clients.

Some follow abstract themes while others look to extend the visual language and possibilities of real world locations. All end up as fully interactive, shoppable online experiences, primarily accessed through web, mobile and for some, VR.                
Art Direction, Creative Direction, Concepting, Experience Design
2022 - 2023






Audi VR Lab

The Audi VR Lab is vertical slice of a learning exercise within Gemba, built to teach users about wasteful practices within the business. The lab was one of my first projects I worked in as a VR Producer within the company, created to show Audi the benefits and capabilities of learning through VR.

I was responsible for concepting the experience, designing the pitch as well as art directing and QA’ing the final development build. Cinema 4D provided the quickest route for me to explain my idea and communicate the user flow to developers and clients alike.

The experience starts with a user in a customised ‘lab’ overseeing a mini-world of an Audi factory scene. Alive with activity, it then prompts the user to move their mini avatar into one of the factories, transporting them into the scene.
VR, Experience Design, Spatial Design, Art Direction
2018






Gemba Auditorium Redesign

 When beginning the rebrand of The Leadership Network into Gemba we were tasked with creating a new auditorium that leaders could use to present traditional learning content to masterclass participants.

Given one week, we quickly researched then iterated different avenues of how this environment could behave in VR. All starting from a rough sketch in which I depicted a room that would explore the dichotomy between the man-made and the natural, the physical and the virtual. This idea was then tested and iterated on to give a variety of alternatives shown through various illustrations.

Different ‘seating’ designs were also explored, playing along the same theme of man-made vs natural. All of these designs were created against the backdrop of developmental concerns; ensuring low-poly and low draw call adaptations could be easily built from the initial concepts.
Oliver Vanes - Art Direction & Concept
Bethan Wegener - Illustration & Iterations
Hannah Bivand - Illustration & Iterations
2021




Gemba World Redesign

Gemba is a virtual reality learning and collaboration platform designed to provide senior executives with an exceptional tool that solves the logistical challenge of implementing high-level training on a mass scale.

During the pandemic, the need for a re-emagining of Gemba’s VR world came about. Both to create a vision for the development team to work towards as they began the company to pivot 100% VR and to market the concept of real a place for our enterprise clients to go to.

Over the course of a few weeks, the design team researched, sketched and ultimately designed a version of this new world that accomodated all future features of Gemba.

With the brand logo and associated shapes as a starting point, we began extrapolating the slow three-dimensional evolution of the brand out into architecture, space and environments.
Oliver Vanes - VR, Art Direction & Design
Bethan Wegener - Design & Illustration
Hannah Bivand - Modelling & Design
2020




Transcendent Graphic Design

 Transcendent Graphic Design is an investigation into the currently unexplored convergence of graphic design and virtual reality. Completed within 18 days to be exhibited at the Central Saint Martins degree show it explores the potential of 3 posters as a representation of traditional graphic design output transcending into 3 respective abstract audiovisual experiences.

Film, art, porn, and gaming amongst others have all made the straightforward transition to virtual reality but what about graphic design? Future avatar based social gatherings in VR will have advertising just as the social media of today does, and so it is here that graphic design may begin to venture into the virtual space.


In collaboration with Kwan Chow.                
VR, Art Direction, Creative Direction, Graphic Design, Art Direction
2017