OPEN: RETAIL FUTURES
3D Design, Animation, Concept Development for The Future Laboratory
How can data earn trust when numbers no longer persuade?
OPEN is a speculative data visualisation platform designed to help brands visually communicate ethics and transparency. Commissioned by The Future Laboratory, the project debuted as part of the Retail Futures Forum — responding to a shift toward hyper-visual, values-driven consumers referred to as “Gen Viz.”
Exhibition
Retail Futures Forum, The Future Laboratory, London
Commissioned by The Future Laboratory
Featured in LS:N Global Future Forecast & Retail Futures coverage
Technology
Cinema 4D — to generate and animate real-time 3D organisms with behavioural variation
After Effects — for compositing and sequencing animated simulations
Web prototype — designed as a speculative retail tool for transparency
Process
Each brand was visualised as a digital organism, algorithmically shaped by metrics such as environmental impact, trading transparency, and ethical sourcing. Their form, texture, and motion reflected real scoring data — with smoother movement or richer materiality signalling stronger ethical standing.
The system offered an alternative to traditional data dashboards — replacing charts and spreadsheets with intuitive, aesthetic organisms that could evolve in real time.
Output
Interactive web prototype for retail trust communication
Large-scale motion installation at The Future Laboratory’s Retail Futures Forum
Brand organism simulations for Nike, Dove, Samsung, and more
Reflection
OPEN reimagines trust not as a score, but as a living system — one that evolves, reacts, and reveals. In a world of algorithmic opacity, it offered a visual language to translate ethics into form — making the invisible politics of commerce feel not only legible, but alive.