Defining the next generation premium car.

Audi approached gravity to develop a new research method for front-end innovation. By involving a wide range of internal stakeholders and connecting them with future trend observers, gravity devised a global study across USA, China and Germany that breaks with preconceived notions of luxury and status.

gravity translated the findings into a clear vision for Audi’s premium strategy, created a viable design direction and facilitated the internal communication of project results by designing a tangible presentation format. The new research method has become an integral part of Audi’s market research toolbox.

Show me your feet and I tell you who you are.

gravity designed Gerrit Starczewski's second Dancing Shoes book: portraits of famous feet on stage. 

Can I help you, Sweetheart?

With Banker Link, BBVA Compass creates a whole new drive-thru banking experience. 

In the Sun Belt area of the USA, the drive-through channel accounts for more than 60% of all BBVA Compass customers’ banking transactions. Re-inventing this channel had to be handled with empathy and a strong sensitivity to regional likes and needs. The gravity team started the project with a 3-week road trip through the South of the United States in order to truly understand what drive-thru banking is all about.

The final experience being currently rolled out consists of a custom-designed terminal, a user interface that is optimised for use from the car as well as the charm and flexibility of personal service.

gravity designed all aspects of the experience and collaborated with the technical implementation partners in order to safeguard design intent.

Next generation postal service.

TPPostal is a well-known stand-alone application designed for post offices worldwide. In collaboration with Wincor Nixdorf, gravity has redesigned the information architecture and the look and feel of its TPPostal application for both desktop and mobile devices, in a consistent, logical and responsive way.

Without altering the business logic supporting the user interface and taking into consideration the complex code behind the application, gravity created an entirely new GUI. Improving readability and usability, gravity ultimately reinforced the WN Postal GUI brand identity. Wincor Nixdorf was also provided with a new set of icons and design guidelines to inform future developments and GUI iterations.

This new interface language had to adapt to both WPF-bound desktop and html5 mobile platforms - not all mechanics and behaviors from one platform could be exported to the next - thus the challenge was to replicate these using platform-specific requirements.

These are our beliefs.
Do you have some, too?

You're more interesting than black, white and silver.

cosmobrandlab are the makers behind the sophisticated accessories brand 'côte et ciel'. Together with them gravity created ‘own’, a complete new brand and product experience for mobile accessories that plays on subtle details to appeal to today’s creative class. 

gravity tailored everything to the classy, progressive tastes of a discerning target group – the name, the logo, the protective cases, and the webshop experience.

Be handsome. Be beautiful.

For our favourite hairdressers in Munich AMBA, gravity created a new brand and all communication assets. Their new identity transports the edginess of their character and the fun of looking your best.

Check them out at www.amba-hair.com

Photography by August Castell Castell
Store Photography by Hannes Rohrer

Stell Dir vor, die Zukunft wird wunderbar und Du bist Schuld.

In 2009 gravity created a study program at Munich’s University for Applied Science that teaches design thinking and entre- and intrapreneurial skills: ape | denk weiter. Students and executives attend the same program, creating a vibrant platform for exchange and cross-inspiration.

In evening classes and workshops, gravity is coaching ape members in creative methods as well as the theory and practice of innovation. The first term is devoted to laying the methodological foundations. In the second term participants work on real-life innovation projects for industry clients. In all parts of the program, participants are challenged to bring to bear and develop their own expertise, intuition, and personalities.

One does fit all.

Wincor Nixdorf was looking for a new, distinctive interface that would stand out from the crowd of ATM interfaces. At the same time they wanted to provide highly tailored and brand-specific solutions to their customers. How do you create a flexible interface that adapts to multiple brands across a large number of ATM models from different providers?

gravity delivered innovations both in UI behavior and functionality. Along with improving the basic set of transactions, gravity proposed other ATM banking services that introduced new behaviors.

The fully customizable interface was adapted to touch-enabled and soft-key ATMs. Textures, buttons, icons, animations and general assets were designed and coded to be implemented onto the UI’s abstracted graphical layer, thus enabling efficient run-time updates.

Both the transparent assets and background grids highlight the interface’s versatility and its sharp precision.

Who educates entrepreneurship educators?

Coneeect is a program founded by an international network of universities that offers training to entrepreneurship teachers. 

gravity has designedconeeect’s whole corporate identity, web page, and promotional material, combining the formal language of academic accuracy with a tiny bit of learning’s best pal: playfulness.

Keep it superrandom.

SUPERRANDOM is a concept store experiment we launched in our favorite quarter of Munich, Haidhausen, in 2009. For 10 months we offered an eclectic selection of products, fashion, art, books, and food - all created by people we know and like:

Ayzit Bostan :: Saskia Diez :: Patrick Mohr :: Kaveh Kasravi :: Nadine Gross :: Nakid Design :: Le Chateau En Couleur :: Sorin Morar :: Labelagent mit den Marken Stampd’ LA, best behavior, Mads Norgaard :: Gestalten Verlag :: and many more

10 months. 39 designers. 17 labels. 7 events. 1 network. 1 concept. 1 space.

SUPERRANDOM by gravity

Word of mouth. Is there an app for that?

Here at gravity, we're frequent travellers and we all saw the need for a better and more personal app to discover the best places in a city according to the people you trust. You can share maps with friends, comment and bookmark places that you want to check out. You can then ask the right people for recommendations and receive curated city guides, just for you. 

Truffle is a gravity-initiated project, developed in collaboration with an external partner. We have created the app from ideation all the way to implementation.

Food Thinking: When design thinking meets food

What drives today’s food culture and what are tomorrow’s food trends? How can food producers and FMCG companies provide new value? gravity conducted human-centered research across Europe to find out. Whether at the laboratory of elBulli, dumpster-diving or dinner-clubs – we ate it all! We would like to discuss our thinking and approach to innovation and share stories from this hands-on project about the future of food.

Get the full story on www.food-thinking.com

Now water stacks.

Indigo, a boutique hotel in Patagonia (Chile), asked gravity to design a bottle, logo, and label for their soon to be launched house-brand of bottled water: fjord. gravity created a simple, elegant bottle that evokes the beauty of glaciers and the purity of their water. Stacking multiple bottles adds a level of fascination and playfulnessand gives them a life span far beyond their original use. 

The logo and label incorporate subtle details that play on the rough charm of the Patagonian landscape. The reduced designs of the bottle and its logo leave room for boldness: the colorful band that is silk-screened on the back creates visual friction and adds character.

American appeal for a Spanish bank.

BBVA Compass asked gravity to redesign the look and feel, behavior and some of the transaction flows of their ATM Fleet graphic user interface. The result is a consistent and intuitive interface, both simplifying everyday banking transactions and further engaging customers with the brand.

While inspired by BBVA’s global CI and respecting typographic requirements, gravity had to generate a visual language that resonated better with the US audience. New icon sets, buttons and behaviors were generated and implemented onto the proven Banker Link UI mechanisms. All specifications and assets were detailed in extensive support documentation.

Design and engineering: hand in hand.

gravity was asked to create a range of next generation automated teller machines for the global bank BBVA. Abil 2 is the key consumer touchpoint in BBVA’s Bank of the Future, combining well known ATM operations with a wide range of banking services that include a remote teller video connection. The interweaving of “virtual” on screen interactions and “real” hardware design features, ensures an intuitive use.

In a very close collaboration with BBVA and Wincor Nixdorf, gravity developed a device that offers a unique, clean and timeless design. Even though it introduces many new features, the team was able to draw back on existing hardware components, offering a modular solution for free-standing, through-the-wall, as well as wide and narrow versions.

With Abil 2, the team created a much less cost intensive, more reliable and versatile version of its predecessor, Abil.

You never know when inspiration strikes.

Wacom approached gravity to shape a new communication campaign for the pens in their Bamboo Stylus range.

gravity’s approach to the challenge was simple: Inspire, don’t persuade. Rather than explaining the technical features, the campaign aims to show users the possibilities unlocked by the different products. The whole global marketing campaign – ads, texts, product shots, a microsite, and an inspirational image video – was built with this goal in mind.

Together with Pricewaterhouse Coopers’ Automotive Institute gravity has compiled three studies outlining consumer and industry trends in Europe, the Americas, and Asia.

PwC and gravity took a qualitative research approach to create original content for the studies, learning about mobility in the homes (and cars) of consumers. The team combined the ‘soft’ data from the field with ‘hard’ quantitative analysis to craft an engaging read on behaviors and perceptions around mobility.

The studies were published during Germany’s International Auto Show (IAA) 2009, 2011, and 2013.

Inventing tomorrow – since 1985.

When ThyssenKrupp sold their Tailored Blanks business to the Chinese steel giant Wisco, the transition presented a challenge – culturally and visually. gravity created the new brand and corporate identity.

To boost corporate culture, the new identity was co-created with the leadership team. The communication strategy included a photo shoot with employees from all departments that were featured as heroes of the work place. 

How to infuse a car clinic with real life.

Audi approached gravity to help shape a car clinic for a new concept study. We completely redesigned the clinic experience by creating a space that enables participants to engage with relevant use scenarios. By offering every-day props, visuals and video, we managed to establish a link to real life situations, thus adding a valuable human-centered focus to the car concept testing. To accomplish even greater in-depth results, we collaborated with a traditional research agency and evaluated both qualitative and quantitative data for our final report.

Beauty. No room for mistakes.

DST Diagnostics asked gravity to design their innovative disposable allergy test set, FastCheckPOC. The device provides reliable results on allergies in just 30 minutes and with small samples of blood. The smart technology developed by DST was in search of the perfect housing: small, simple, and cheap enough to be disposable, while at the same time communicating reliability, accuracy, and the highest medical standards. 

gravity designed a tiny, refined piece of medical equipment which uses subtle cues and guides the user to minimize mistakes. The clear label on the surface of the device provides only helpful information and does not distract with unnecessary frills. Gentle guidance to support ease of use already starts with the packaging: a box that turns into a small medical lab with clear step-by-step instructions once unfolded.

Silver services.

Otto Group asked gravity to create new business models  targeting one of their subsidiaries' main customer base of women 50+. Team members of Otto were part of the entire process and learned the design thinking method hands on.

Together we analysed the user group's current services and conducted user research to identify what truly moves women in the middle of their lives - related to fashion and otherwise. Based on the revealing insights we gathered, we created concepts for a variety of business opportunities and tested them with prototypes. 

Everything is Rock 'N' Roll.

For Gerrit Starzcewski's exhibition of rock 'n' roll photography, gravity created a catalogue that sold out immediately. We don't even have a copy ourselves.