NAME: Cheryl Hills | Theory Group
COLLECTIVE TEAM: Diego Kolsky, Jennifer Mira. or, Mitsuka Horikawa
LATIN NAME: confero senus
AGE:30

Even though she’s only recently graduated from Art Center College of Design, Cheryl Hills is an accomplished designer with what appears to be a (condensed) lifetime of work experience under her belt. She has worked in Los Angeles in the entertainment and animation industries, developing concepts and strategies for feature films, TV, video, commercials and interactive games. She has worked at FutureBrand’s Brand Experience Group in New York, a firm known for its willingness to take the traditional notion of brand identity in new directions. Currently at Plaid in New York, she designs environments and experiences that often include interactive software as a way to complete a specific sensory experience. Hills feels the best way to capture the attention of an audience, and therefore to brand something, is to create an experience that engages all of the senses.

While Hills was at FutureBrand she worked on a large scale branding project for a residential real estate development in Bahrain. The challenge was to advertise buildings that were as yet unbuilt. Her solution was to create immersive spaces—in this case large sculptures—which people can actually walk through, touch, see, smell and hear. “Since it’ll be a place for people to live in, putting this amazing architectural development up on a billboard just wouldn’t do it justice,” she says.

Another example of Hill’s contribution to the evolution of experiential branding is a project she worked on at Plaid for a PriceWaterhouseCoopers annual meeting. The installation was designed to provide financial advisors with a virtual brainstorming environment. Their ideas were projected as thought bubbles onto clear glass surfaces that allow others to expand on them and provide feedback.

And as if all of this wasn’t enough, in late 2005 Hills founded Theory Group, a fledgling collective of individuals dedicated to changing the way branding is thought about and carried out. “As a designer who wants to utilize all possible mediums, even the ones outside of design, I realize that to make things work in a huge scale, you need to be able to collaborate to make things happen the right way,” says Hills. “If it’s done well, the process becomes an amazing experience for everyone involved. I don’t need to be the expert on everything.”

“Logistically, it will always be a unique situation,” says Hills of the fact that she and her collaborators in Theory Group live far away from one another. “It could mean setting up a temporary studio or working virtually ... or working on the project on a vacation together.” Alice Twemlow

(TOP): SPEK (Designed by Theory Group) Product concept, design and brand development for a marriage of two brands—Lomography and 3M. Spek is a new breed of camera. The portable camera lens, attachable to virtually any surface, also includes a device to remotely control the lens, wireless capabilities and an online service, Spek Global.