• by Larissa Faw , May 20, 2019

Frog is marking the design shop's 50-year anniversary with a traveling multimedia and interactive exhibition showcasing photography from Helmut Newton and Dieter Henneka, as well as examples of client collaborations with Apple, Sony, and BNYMellon.

The experience is currently on view at the agency's NY office. 

"Throughout our history, frog has emphasized customer experience and human-centered design, and those principles have never been more relevant," explains Andrew Zimmerman, President, frog. "At the same time, much has changed and our work today is much broader than it was a decade ago."

The exhibit includes a 24-foot-wide video wall that shows an animated timeline of frog projects and a physical gallery displaying frog-designed products. 

While this installation celebrates the agency's work over the past five decades, Zimmerman sought to balance between nostalgia and the future by incorporating emerging technologies. An AR experience features "magic mirrors," which use various image tracking technology to create moments of play for viewers, along with an interactive AR wall and accompanying image tokens.

Another layer of interactivity includes the gutting of a couple of Macintosh computers to mirror augmented reality work. Visitors will also find signatures inside the computer from the entire original Apple design team, including Steve Jobs, who believed the artists must sign their ground-breaking work.

"Our work has gone from designing identifiable physical products to designing digital and physical experiences,” says Zimmerman. 

Later this year, exhibitions will be staged in other locations where frog has studios, including San Francisco next month. Earlier this year, similar exhibitions celebrating frog’s anniversary were held in Austin, TX during South by Southwest (SXSW) and at the firm’s Munich and Milan studios.