Creating a digital service for a
bathroom supplier

Graphics and frontend for Svedbergs Digital Showroom.

MY ROLE

In a team of four people, my role was project management, 3D artist, product developement, test and QA.

CIENT

Svedbergs – Swedish manufacturer of bathroom furnitures and products.

SOLUTION

Furniture configurator – a digital service that allows customers to discover, evaluate, mix & match among Svedberg’s entire assortment.

The challenge

Understanding the needs

Perhaps the most complicated and cost intensive personal design project any individual will undertake is the remodelling or new purchase of their private kitchen and bathroom space.

While representing a significant long-term investment in both cost and lifestyle, customers, above all, seek inspiration toward the brands they desire in an easy to access, informative and stress free retail experience. The challenge is to find the products and accessories they most desire in the combinations they wish to purchase for their home.

The solution

Digital Showroom

An informative and easy-to-use interactive retail experience. The Digital Showroom allows customers to discover, evaluate, mix & match the complete product assortment within various environments or lifestyle scenarios.

The Digital Showroom is available as a web application or a standalone installed on a touch screen.

Scroll down to see the process!

The creative process

Svedbergs Digital Showroom

The client wanted to make it easier for its customers to take part in their complete range of bathroom products and reduce the need for physical showrooms in stores. To find an environment suitable for displaying the products, a bathroom exhibition was photographed on site in their factory in Dalstorp. This reference image was then built in a 3D environment with angle and light optimized for all products and materials. Creating the 3D scene was an iterative process in tight collaboration with the client.

3D scene wireframe.

Final image.

Articles and structure

Svedbergs product range includes thousands of items. To be able to display all of them in one image configurator, and also be able to combine everything with everything (in thousands of different unique combinations), a well-thought-out structure was required. Both the 3D scene and the article data needed to be prepared and structured so that the service would be easy to use for both users, clients and inhouse.

Creating 3D materials

A critical part of the project was to create photorealistic materials. Since the products in the digital service was a representation of reality, the materials were created using a physical sample as a reference. Reflections, irregularities and other characteristics were projected on the materials and made the images come to life.

Light oak material.

Yellow metal material with holes.

Result: Svedbergs Digital Showroom

Try the digital showroom here.

Learnings

# Prepare for change!
Since all products have their unique shape and thus cast their own unique shadows, it was a challenge to get all products to match with each other without any overlap. We solved this by having a carefully thought out structure for product placement in the 3D scene. That way we were prepared for future updates and could handle both wide and narrow, high and low furniture in combination.

# Include stakeholders
This project was the start of a long-term collaboration with Svedbergs containing annual updates, assortment management and client events. During this project I learned the importance of working with the client as an obvious part of the process. It also became clear that our knowledge of technology was very different. I solved this through close communication, a clear brief and joint QA reviews.