1. Product design
2. Rapid prototyping
3. Production
4. 3D modeling
5. Video

USER
Corporate employees

TEAM
Altimeter (Maria Platia, Megan Valanidas, Kate Dannessa, Tom Weis, and Irina Wang) in collaboration with THAT Studio

DURATION

2 months

Work from Wherever

Project summary:
The Work from Wherever kit (WFW) is a discursive project focusing on transitioning back into an office environment from working remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. After the quarantine lifted, companies started requesting to return to an in-office setting after nearly two years of working from home. However, going back to ‘work as usual’ did not come naturally for most, and many conversations began about what being in-person meant moving forward after such an impactful event.

The Work from Wherever kit was a response to this topic. The WFW objects serve as a collection of artifacts adopted in our digital meeting environments and translated into physical objects for people to use to help transition back into office spaces.

Challenge ︎

How do we capture this moment in time when we are beginning to move back to an in-person work setting?

What will we want to take with us from the digital working space?

Unique Solution ︎

A satirical ‘returning to the office’ survival kit and campaign that translates.

Goals ︎

1. Translate a digital experience into a physical one

2. Design objects for production

3. Create and publish a campaign in collaboration with THAT Studio

4. Create a kit of objects for purchase

UNDERSTANDING

Identifying what was kept and what was lost in the translation to remote working

The COVID pandemic was the first time for many to experience working remotely and adapting to a nontraditional work environment. For this transition, qualities and habits were found or discarded as they were no longer needed or applicable to the “new normal” people were living in.

“What kinds of artifacts from remote work due to COVID will be adapted to the traditional in-office work environment? What will we gain? What will we lose? How will the remote culture transfer and what will it look like?”

We first mapped what was taken from the in-person office and how those objects and habits were reimagined in the remote work setting.

How has in-office work been translated into remote work? What has been adapted?

How will remote work influence or be translated into in-office working?

IDENTIFY

Artifact Inspiration

Based on the digital features we have adopted while working remotely, the Altimeter team conceptualized and designed six objects that translated these digital tools into physical office trinkets.

Meet the objects!

Direct Messaging Scroll

Concrete Mute Button

Kinetic Hand Raise

Sticky Backgrounds

Emoji Cube

Office Banker Box

COMMUNICATION

Strategic branding for an opportunity to emphasize translation

Led by designer and Fulbright scholar Irina Wang, the branded direction for Work from Wherever was inspired by translating digital ‘monuments’ or identities into the physical. The color palette comes from the largely primary and secondary color palettes used in applications most commonly used in work culture, and then recalibrated for a more natural hue.

Looking at physical ways of making, such as traditional woodtype, the forms of letters were analyzed to capture their most identifiable features, such as serif forms and exaggerated heights, then reapplied into the digital space with more even widths across the full letter.

EXECUTION

Mass Production and Online Store

The kit has been produced by U.S.-based manufacturers using materials such as cherry wood veneer, concrete, brass, and poplar wood. The project's mission to translate digital concepts into physical objects through natural materials, while also supporting domestic manufacturing, guided these material choices.

These objects are available to purchase on Altimeter Design’s website.

EXECUTION

Media Presence: Video Campaign

To launch the WFW product line, a series of advertisements was created to demonstrate the use of the products and to add to the dialogue about what working back in the office would look like from a comedic/satirical lens.