Blending the digital space and mother nature on Boyne Valley Driving Route
Boyne ValleyA fun, engaging and unique interactive experience which acts as a draw for the many users in the flagship tourist office in Drogheda. It also acts as a support reference tool for tourist office staff. Shortlisted for the Irish Tourism Industry Awards 2017 in the 'Tourism Innovation' category.
The Challenge
Tourist visitors to both Drogheda and the Boyne Valley have risen dramatically in the last few years. Louth County Council saw an opportunity to enhance the visitor experience with an update to the Tourist Office, (based in the landmark Tholsel building), the main aim being to encourage visitors to explore the Boyne Valley Driving Route. Part of this update was a proposed interactive with 4 touchscreens which would give browsing visitors a taste of all the Boyne Valley has to offer and inspire people to get out and explore the Driving Route. MOR's track record with inspirational and creative digital experiences made us the perfect choice for this project.
Process
MOR are proudly based in Drogheda, the heart of the Boyne Valley. We love where we are from and we love that there is so much to see and do here and we were delighted to pitch for and win this fascinating project. As with all our projects, we like to dive in deep, and understand all aspects. We determined the user journey, from resting screen with compelling and simple animated representation of the river, through to the experiences themselves with rich content - images, videos, and individual soundscapes and quirkily illustrated animations for each. Inspired by Ireland’s Ancient East, we identified 5 main stories or experiences - Ancient Secrets, Holy Ground, Conflict and Power, Beauty and Romance, and Beating Heart, which fully cover the richness of the heritage and experiences along the route.
- Intensive content and asset gathering for galleries and unique story videos
- Established a style and illustrative blueprint. Illustration was to be a strong feature of this project, giving it with a unique and quirky flavour
- Explored the personality of each story, feeling, colours of each experience and began to develop unique characters to represent each
- Extensive content creation, from unique 'taster' videos, to story animations, to browseable video and image galleries.
- Vibrant, engaging, larger than life touchscreen interfaces
- Software. We partnered with Intuiface and used the latest touchscreen technology to create this unique experience.
Our Solution
- Characters - once we had identified an overall illustrative style and also the personality and colours for each experience, we developed a unique character for each.
- Navigation - we developed the idea of making an integrated and intuitive navigation which became a much more tactile part of the whole adventure. We developed panels which the user has to part like a veil or curtain, or even the page of a book. Once the user pushes the panel aside, the experience or story is fully revealed. It’s simple, yet very engaging, almost addictive
- Video - each story has a unique 'taster' or trailer-style video, showcasing all the historic sites and stories but capturing the mood and essence of that story
- Sound - each experience or story has a unique soundscape, built up between the overall sound, the story sound itself and additional sound from each taster video. We carefully refined sound levels to enhance the experience, yet not be overpowering
- Animation - Our aim was to produce simple yet hypnotic river sequences to entice users in. Each screen at rest, features a unique animation, each one tailored to mirror the shape of the river and valley on the surrounding printed panel.
More about Creative Design and Content
About Boyne Valley
The Boyne Valley, with the majestic Boyne River at its heart is one of Ireland’s most historic regions. To travel this valley is to experience an incredible journey through 5000 years of Irish history, and features some of Ireland’s best known monuments and heritage sites, wrapped up with ancient myths, heroic legends, Gaelic royalty, historic battles and stunning landscapes.
