Vergani&Gasco S.r.l.

Earth
Viaggi

Travel / Nominee

Vergani&Gasco S.r.l.

Travel

Nominee

From a narrative point of view, we tried to create animations and effects that would support the story. We avoided creating elements that are an end in itself, if not directly connected to what we have to tell. - Vergani&Gasco S.r.l. Team

Q: Can you briefly describe your project and the concept behind it?

A: "A journey begins when you start to imagine it, to feel places, to smell them, to see their colors and to hear their noises." This is the deep spirit—the red thread—which guides the user through earthviaggi.it. Earth Viaggi corporate site is born from this philosophy; a site that aims to tell about distant people and worlds. A site to produce culture and to engage and entertain the user in a unique, first-of-its-kind experience. Not a travel catalog, but a story of the vision, experience, and transmission of values that have been the core of Earth for more than thirty years: love for travel, respect for places, people, and for the culture that they meet there.

Q: Talk about your initial prototypes. How did those ideas change throughout design and execution?

A: The production process of a digital product is certainly always a work in progress. It starts from a limited series of consolidated elements, then the rest is part of a continuous validation process, which closely resembles agile development processes. We must also remember that we develop entities in a certain "living" way that must respond and adapt to new needs.

Q: What web technologies, tools, or resources did you use to develop this?

A: Design and prototype: Adobe XD, Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects Cms: Drupal 8 IDE: Atom Custom features: custom php, restful api, Symfony Frontend: twig, html 5, Vue.js, Three.js, Webpack, Sass

What breakthrough or “a-ha” moment did you experience when concepting or executing this project?

We think that the decisive moments for the development of the project were the initial stages, in which we got to know the client, we tried to tune in to his philosophy and we decided to give a communicative slant outside the box. The project was developed step by step, deepening the knowledge of Earth Viaggi through many meetings. During the design phase, various moments of dialogue alternated in which we discussed the various ideas always in a constructive way.

Q: What influenced your chosen technical approach, and how did it go beyond past methods?

A: Every place and every destination requires its own way to be told. This has led to the study of specific layouts for each page with ad hoc animations that highlight the specificities of each place. The individuality of every destination and their story is also expressed by the selection of image and videos. For each place, the themes to be told were selected with extreme care, not only tourist attractions, but also curiosities and in-depth.

Q: How did you balance your creative and technical capabilities with the client’s brand?

A: From a narrative point of view, we tried to create animations and effects that would support the story. We avoided creating elements that are an end in itself,if not directly connected to what we have to tell. Technical skills were then used to improve every aspect of the user experience, e.g. by focusing heavily on the speed of content delivery. We think that the result is an elegant and engaging product that enhances the perception of the brand.

Q: How did the final product defy your expectations?

A: When you start a project, you don't know exactly where you will land, you only know that you will give your best. The production process led us to design a very flexible layout tool, which takes data from multiple sources. The funniest and most complicated thing was finding balance between a beautiful aesthetic, something out of the ordinary, with the flexibility and autonomy of the customer in creating new sections.

Q: Why is this an exciting time to create new digital experiences? How does your team fit into this?

A: Creating digital experiences is always very exciting; we have been doing this job for twenty years and we always approach each project with the same enthusiasm. What is changing in this period is the attention to the communication and the growing skills that all users have in the use of digital media.