Uniqlo Heattech 2010

Featured in designboom.
Published in Gestalten’s Brand Spaces,
and Brand Experiences between Pop-Up and Flagship.

“Aurora Borealis” was a large-scale branded art installation which was
commissioned as part of Uniqlo’s Heattech campaign.

The goal? To develop a high-impact installation that evokes “heat” and “tech”– the 2 key selling points of this product line.

The creative response deliberately chose a “no-tech” approach to express “high-tech” in order to create an immersive and poetic intervention in the space through simple sculptural forms that emit a luminescent aura without relying on expensive lighting technology. With the ultimate goal to effectively communicate and transmit the feeling of one being immersed in heat, a series of 2 to 4-meter tall “fins”, with gradated color fields, were composed precisely throughout the store to create a singular monolithic fractal icon that changed and transformed according to the viewer’s point of view – a non-static static form.

The combined visual results – kinetic energy captured in a
frozen moment, a sense of light without light, a powerful visual magnet
in the midst of the busiest retail street of New York Soho.