We kicked-off our work with Animax in June 2020 by exploring two key questions. First, how would its brand change after its purchase in 2019 by Cityneon? And second, what should the brand be for its latest creation, a ground breaking animatronic solution? Answering these questions were part of a larger scope to develop a new brand for the company and a new brand strategy for its latest creation—which we called ATOM. The scope included market research, brand story, new brand mark (logos), color palette, etc. Because of the pandemic, the work was finally unveiled in Orlando at IAAPA’s 2021 trade show.
Working in partnership with JRA and Cortina Productions, Creative Principals is serving as creative director for the Ozark Mill tour and museum experience inside this new attraction being created by the Morris family from BassPro Shops. The Ozark Mill includes a general store, restaurant, bar and museum. We worked with local historians and mill experts on crafting the story, design and scripting all the media inside. The experience had a soft opening in November 2022 with a planned grand opening sometime during the summer of 2023.
After our pro-bono work on The Big Break Foundation, we worked to show the organization that the best place to find those who need helping breaking into the themed entertainment industry is with managers on the front lines of its regional parks. So, to do this, our Founder & Chief Creative Officer delivered a motivational speech to 250 of Lagoon’s managers. Its HR Director said, “Geoff’s enthusiasm and creativity were a perfect match to engage, encourage, and inspire our leadership team.” Our mentorship extends to sponsoring activities with the TEA Club at the Savannah College of Art & Design.
We believe it's important to be thought leaders in the industry and so we post articles online, publish books like "The CEO's Time Machine" and speak at industry events. Both our Founder & Chief Creative Officer Geoff Thatcher and our Designer and Illustrator Zoe Thatcher speak regularly at industry conferences, from IAAPA and the Themed Entertainment Association's SATE Conference to the PDMA Conference and SCAD. Many of these speaking opportunities are connected to Geoff & Zoe's book "The CEO's Time Machine."
The results are in and The Light the World Mobile Giving Machine ended up sending 13,000 donations to nine charities in five cities throughout the Southeastern United States. Creative Principals worked with Boncom to promote these reverse vending machines as they traveled from St. Augustine to Birmingham, Atlanta, Charlotte and then Charleston during the 2022 Christmas season. In Charleston alone, the people of South Carolina donated 543 Family Meals, 253 Warm Winter Clothes, 210 Personal Care Kits, 105 Warm Night's Rest and 405 7-Day Bus Passes. Our work included creating renderings for each of the locations, brainstorming story ideas, developing a communications strategy and then hiring the Tucker|Hall PR firm to help generate the publicity.
When artificial intelligent design tools hit the market in June 2022, we immediately saw the potential and shifted resources to learning and deploying AI across our work, including subscribing to a private server on Midjourney, a subscription to DALL-E 2 and a subscription to Jasper. We also were early adopters of ChatGPT and now use its version on Microsoft's Bing. In early 2023, Geoff and Zoe Thatcher published in Blooloop some of the lessons we've learned in using AI tools as part of the experience design process. We've also delivered AI training to a number of clients, including Boncom, Miral, Haskell and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. At the European version of the Themed Entertainment Association's SATE Conference, Geoff and Zoe partnered with Yael Coifman from LDP to design a theme park attraction in one hour with the help of AI and the audience.
Creative Principals was hired by Miral to lead the creative on an inter-disciplinary team developing a new vision for the Al Ain Zoo in Abu Dhabi. We worked with LDP, Deloitte, SeaWorld and the Abu Dhabi Department of Culture and Tourism to craft a new direction for the zoo. This work included research, benchmarks, site visit, a week-long charrette that we facilitated along with concept plans and renderings. While we can't show the details of our work, we do look forward to seeing this vision implemented over the coming years.
Creative Principals was hired by the Coastal Heritage Society to masterplan and design its new "Savannah STEAM" experience inside the historic 1925 Storeroom at the Georgia State Railroad Museum. While we can't share visuals or details of the concepts yet, the work kicked-off with a series of three engaging full-day charrettes with educators, stakeholders and staff. The input from these charrettes then informed the master plan and designs. Creative Principals recruited some great partners to assist us in this work, including MuseumEXP and Boss Display.
The Chick-Fil-A College Football Hall of Fame's new GAME ON! AI Experience is getting rave reviews as a "revolutionary, wild, must-see, amazing, fantastic, wonderful, next-level and A+ experience." GAME ON! is doing this by putting fans directly into the game with its new AI experience. We started working directly with the Hall of Fame in September 2023 and put together the partnership with Creative Principals, The Producers Group, HyperCinema, 3Stage Design, Forward Thinking Designs and Project Workshop that moved our concepts into final design and production in April 2024. The GAME ON! AI Experience, along with other work such as a new military exhibit, opened on the the 10th Anniversary of the College Football Hall of Fame on August 24, 2024.
Creative Principals is partnering with JRA to lead the creative on the visitor experience inside the planned JEA H2.O Purification Center in Jacksonville. This visitor center inside a new water purification plant is designed to educate visitors about the water cycle, aquifer and how this advanced technology works. The overall project team is led by Haskell with architect Yves Rathle and engineering partners Black & Veatch. Our scope includes creative direction, writing, design and branding. As with all of our projects, it kick-off with several immersive charrettes with JEA and the other partners. The project is expected to open in 2024.
Creative Principals served as creative director for the launch of this new theme park in partnership with Dubai's HQ Worldwide Shows. The project included everything from staging and costumes to a batmobile and live show with fireworks. One big highlight was producing a grand opening video that went viral--generating more than 18 million views.
Creative Principals has been working with FM Global's brand experience team since 2018 on a variety of projects, from the FM Global Centre in Singapore to its Research Campus in Rhode Island. In fact, we worked closely with its executives to develop a brand experience framework in 2020 that has helped guide all of the property insurance company's experiences around the world. Over the last five years, we've partnered with a number of firms such as Exhibit Concepts, 3Stage Design, Boss Displays and Elevation3D to create everything from a virtual escape room in the FM Global Innovation Studio to a mobile flood table in its mobile Resilience on Tour brand experience.
How does creative speed help a client like the not-for-profit J. Kruse Education Center? Well, speed can save time and money. Instead of the usual eight weeks, Creative Principals partnered with Unrivaled to deliver a visioning package in three weeks. This included a quick one-day site visit and charrette, storyline, concept plans and renderings. The J. Kruse Education Center offers programming created to help students discover the career they are passionate about and so we embraced this story of passion in every concept. The vision package we produced in 2021 was used for fundraising and now our team is back in Indiana working with the Center on executing those designs.
There are two types of brand experiences that we work on at Creative Principals. First, permanent brand experiences like those for Yokogawa, FM Global, AMG and other clients. Second, temporary brand experiences in the form of events for Anaplan, the Natural Diamonds Council, General Entertainment Authority of Saudi Arabia and other clients. For Anaplan, we led the creative for the company’s fall conference Anaplan LIVE in 2021 and followed up with scripting and coaching for executive speeches in 2022 at the same event. The 2021 event brought together executives for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic. All of the speeches were recorded in a studio in California and their offices in New York City. We also directed both video shoots with media production provided by Space Created.
Kaiser Permanente turned to Creative Principals in 2022 to help with its planned move to a new location. As our Founder & Chief Creative Officer led the creative on the original experience, we helped the healthcare company put together benchmarks, budget estimates and a strategy for the move in three days to meet the internal KP deadline from the facilities team. This is yet one more example of our "Yes If" approach to work. It was the legendary Harrison "Buzz" Price who wrote about the "Yes If" mindset in his book Walt's Revolution By the Numbers. It's the idea of always saying "Yes If" instead of "No Because." He also once said, "Speed can increase quality. Work fast." And we believe in creative speed!
While our work with The Yokogawa Corporation of America was interrupted due to the pandemic, it's a perfect case study of how we begin our brand experience projects. First, the need was simple. Yokogawa was working to redesign its lobby and existing customer experience center to reflect its evolving brand. Second, Creative Principals kicked-off its work with a charrette. The company’s CEO described our work as “energetic, authentic, relevant and engaging.” Most importantly, he said we “helped align everyone to move the project forward.” Third, we developed a new concept with plans and renderings. Fourth, we developed budgets and schedules. We were in the process of moving on to schematic design when the pandemic hit in March 2020.
Since its launch in 2017, Creative Principals has worked on 17 projects with Miral, the company leading the rapid evolution of the leisure and entertainment sector on Yas Island and throughout Abu Dhabi. While we cannot share details of the projects we've worked on, we can say that every single one kicked-off with an immersive and engaging charrette. These charrettes can be done in-person or via Zoom. Either way, they focus on four key things. First, finding the story. Second, exploring ways to translate that story into experiences. Third, brainstorming how to visualize these experiences. And fourth, quick bubble planning and design studies on how these experiences might work and look within a real space.
Since its launch in 2017, Creative Principals has worked on 17 projects with Miral, the company leading the rapid evolution of the leisure and entertainment sector on Yas Island and throughout Abu Dhabi. While we cannot share details of the projects we've worked on, we can say that all of these visioning projects required a similar scope of work that included research, benchmarks, a site visit, charrette, storyline, concept plans and renderings.
Creative Principals worked directly with DOPMO and Granaroli Design and Entertainment on branding the Quest Themed Experience Centre and Doha Oasis mixed-use development. This included brand guidelines, uniforms, merchandise, signage and other elements. From its animated logo to tagline, everything you see advertising this indoor theme park began with our branding work.
Creative Speed means working fast and daring to pull off the seemingly impossible. In late February 2018, Executive Producer Thinkwell Group called Creative Principals and asked a simple question: "Can you put together a team and produce an event on the Future of Entertainment in Saudi Arabia in two months?" After pulling together a team that included Peak XV handling production, David Messinger on strategy and outreach and DKC on public relations, we delivered a packed house and incredible news coverage of the Summit on the Future of Entertainment in Saudi Arabia in April 2018. As one attendee put it, "Hearing officials from Saudi Arabia come to Hollywood and declare their country open for business is big, big news."
