Financial Intelligence
Year
2026A gamified garden that helps people understand how technology investment shapes business performance.
Context
IBM wanted an engaging way to introduce financial intelligence to help business leaders understand their technology spending and make better investment decisions.
Approach
We combined a familiar natural metaphor with playful interaction design, creating a garden that invites people to nurture growth and discover how their choices affect a business.
Impact
The garden brings a playful dimension to IBM’s brand experience, giving its specialists a shared starting point for conversations about clients’ investment challenges.
A familiar living system that draws on the instinct to nurture, giving people a personal reason to engage with an otherwise abstract financial subject.
An Instinct to Nurture
We saw a parallel between biological and business taxonomies, using a plant to give those connected layers a familiar form. Financial resources at the roots support technology functions along the stem, with business outcomes expressed through the flower’s health.
A wilted flower signals that it needs attention, prompting visitors to investigate how to help it recover.
An Environment Built for Interaction
We designed the modular garden as a sandbox, with circular forms, subtle gradients, and outlined interaction areas that help people recognise where to engage. Everything responds when touched, grabbed or dragged, making the environment open to exploration.
This responsiveness encourages visitors to experiment and learn through play, with motion and sound making each action easy to follow and satisfying to perform. Finding the right balance brings the flower into bloom, rewarding choices that improve business performance.
Designed for use across global activations, the experience can accommodate new subjects as business priorities evolve, giving IBM a reusable platform for engagement that extends the value of its investment over time.
Adapting as Priorities Change
Each client story feeds into a procedural system that shapes its flower and interactions. We designed this structure to accommodate stories being added, removed or replaced as topics evolve, allowing IBM to update the content while retaining the core experience.
We want people to leave with the confidence to question how things work, recognise where change could help and take an active role in shaping better outcomes for their business.
Credits
Commissioned by
- IBM
Executive Creative Direction
- Xander Marritt
- Mike Hughes
Executive Production
- Elsa Ásgeirsdóttir
Creative Direction
- Max Palmer
Technical Direction
- Jonas Otto
Production
- Katrin Peters
Development
- Bruno Imbrizi
- Andrew Nelson
Design
- Max Palmer
- Betty Lu
- Samuel Lewek
3D Design
- Margot Hofmans
Sound Design
- Andrew Nelson
Communication
- Ray Chong
- Julien Bauzin
- Alexa Chirnoagă
