Thinkingbox — the Vancouver production house/creative agency created by Amir Sahba — works on a lot of different digital brand experiences and live activations. But where it’s earned a name for itself is combining the two.
Take some of the virtual reality activations it’s done for Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. Last year for the release of Interstellar, it built a device that simulated the feeling of zero gravity, using immersive sound, a head-tracking camera, a moving chair and an Oculus Rift headset. A reporter from Gizmodo wrote “you actually feel like you’re bouncing through a spaceship.”
The Interstellar experience toured Canada, the U.S., and Europe, as have experiences that Thinkingbox designed for Divergent, Jupiter Ascending, and big-budget disaster film Into the Storm. Among the many fans of Thinkingbox’s virtual reality work is Matt Di Paola, Sid Lee’s director of digital innovation. “Into the Storm was the one that really caught my eye,” he says. “They started adding in wind machines and rumbling seats, and started to create a real, tactile experience out of it. That was when I said, ‘These guys are on to something.’”
But Sahba, 29, is adamant that Thinkingbox doesn’t just use technology for technology’s sake. It’s about finding the right technology for the project, whether it’s a custom-build virtual experience or a familiar Flash website. “Our goal is to get the message across, to make sure the story is told in the most effective way,” he says. “If that requires a never-before done technology, we are never scared of it. But if it doesn’t, and it requires a proven, traditional technology, then that would be perfect too.”
At the very beginning, Thinkingbox was just Sahba, a freelance graphic designer working out of his parents’ basement. He came up with the name for his company for a design school project, about fifteen minutes before the class when it was due, he says. But he wasn’t satisfied that was the right way to make his mark, so in 2009 he rented an office and started bringing on local talent to start building an agency.
Today, Thinkingbox’s office is a little bigger — around 10,000 square feet. Between its headquarters in Vancouver and its satellite offices in Toronto and L.A., the agency is home to 80 staff, split between creative, production and sales. It recently hired a second creative director, Christopher Halminen, to start building a second creative team in Toronto.
To get to its current size, the agency’s been growing by 250% per year on average since it started, Sahba says. And it’s not hard to see why Thinkingbox is expanding so quickly. Demand for its activation design and production work is blowing up — it’s worked on projects for Paramount, Molson Canadian, Interac, Canadian Tire and Porsche. Last Christmas, it helped Zulu Alpha Kilo design Kringl, a “proof of Santa” video app for Make-A-Wish Canada.
Brands and creative agencies know Thinkingbox is the shop to go to for bold and inventive experiences, whether on-screen or out-of-home. Di Paola compares them to Brooklyn-based up-and-comer Big Spaceship, which does interactive work for Samsung, Google Play and Nestle Purina.
Sahba says the reputation Thinkingbox has earned in part stems from a decision he made early on never to outsource any aspect of design or development. All of its staff are full-time — helping to ensure the quality of work stays consistent, and the teams that work on projects are familiar with the client’s larger strategy. “We’ve been able to have amazing people, who are much smarter than me, join us and really help our growth — which you can’t get with a contractor or temporary staff,” he says. “It only comes when somebody believes in the business, and more importantly see themselves able to grow with it.”
Thinkingbox’s Vancouver creative director, Troy Graham — one of the company’s first hires in 2010 — says it’s the culture Sahba’s instilled at Thinkingbox that has made the agency’s success possible. “Here’s a man that will put himself through hell and back to get a project out, and get it out successfully,” he says. “I’ve seen him climb under refrigeration units (for Coke’s Arctic Home) and mop up water at 4a.m. from a leak … He doesn’t just tell you what to do, he will set an example and just do it himself, to prove that good work doesn’t just happen.”
