"The Gift" - The Edition Hotel in Times Square

On the corner billboard of the EDITION hotel in Times Square, a gift box tied with a ribbon opens, and inside, a factory making K-pop and K-beauty products unfolds layer by layer. "The Gift" is an anamorphic brand film that Gmarket Global presented in Times Square, New York. Apollon Immersive Works handled creative strategy and project management, designing the illusion that turns the curved screen wrapped around the building's corner into a giant shop window and setting the viewpoint.

The screen bends around the corner of the EDITION hotel building. Keeping this curve as it is, the team designed an illusion that makes viewers feel as if they are looking through glass into a giant shop window. With a high-resolution exterior screen of over 26.6 million pixels and 17,000 square feet, even small details could be shown clearly. With anamorphic content, the sense of depth can come alive or fall apart depending on where you stand. So a true-scale display was built in Times Square using 3D tools, and the team walked through the virtual space to check how the scenes looked from each point. After comparing many angles, the viewpoint was set where the largest number of people could see the full illusion.

The project took place in 2021, when COVID-19 had halted overseas travel. Anamorphic content normally requires visiting the site to analyze the location and media and to test on the actual screen, but this time the team could not go to New York. So the Times Square area was built as a true-scale digital twin, which served as both a design tool and a test stage. From early planning to the end of production, every time a scene changed it was placed in this space to check that the illusion held, and the results fed straight into the next revision. Placed side by side with the actual broadcast, the scenes seen in the virtual tests appear almost exactly as they did on screen. The project was completed through this digital twin alone, without a single site visit.

The film begins with a gift box tied with a ribbon. As the box opens, a factory producing K-pop, K-beauty, and fashion products unfolds layer by layer, and the Gmarket logo rises at the end. Objects that evoke Korea, such as light sticks, turntables, and eyeshadow palettes, are linked together like machine parts to show the variety of an open marketplace. Production was carried out by Chimney Group. Apollon Immersive Works managed the production process so that the concept and viewpoint design came through on screen as intended.

iF Design Award 2023
Winner, Branding & Communication Design, Campaigns