The industrial designer explains the art of virtual staging

Arndt Johannes studied industrial design at the University of Wuppertal. Since 1997 he has been running the brand and design agency Vistapark. In 2016, he founded another company, sooii, which he manages. Here, the focus is on the virtual staging of images. In high-end quality for premium brands from the design industry such as Vitra or Interlübke. A technique that enables product marketing to have high-quality image material for cross-media communication quickly and at an early stage. Virtual content production - hype or relevant reality? We met Arndt Johannes for a real conversation in Wuppertal.

When do we need CGIs today? The biggest advantage of virtual image production is flexibility. The multi-layered media landscape that manufacturers have to cover today no longer works with conventional product photography. It's increasingly about moving images, technologies like VR and AR. In the wake of digitization, you have to find ways to develop diversity. CGI provides the best prerequisite. Because at the beginning there is the digital, media-neutral product. You have the possibility to communicate the new product directly after design approval, at a very early stage, which is no longer possible with a classic photo production, or only with a lot of effort.

How does the creation of virtual product stagings differ from that of conventional photo shoots? From the core, the process is similar to a classic production: design, architecture, styling, photography. What has fundamentally changed is the technique and the way certain things are put on. Our work is more along the lines of a film production pipeline, which requires a lot more thought up front about what needs to happen or how things are coordinated. In traditional shooting, 50-60 percent of the creativity is owed to spontaneity on location. With CGI, that falls away, we have to create spontaneity, authenticity artificially. A learning process, but one that works!

How do you artificially create spontaneity? There is no fixed formula. Every project is slightly different. Basically, it's important to understand how image stylistics work. You have to analyze imagery down to the smallest detail and learn to interpret that for the CGI process. - The quality of CGIs increases with higher detail!

Does using your services change the work of photographers, interior designers, stylists, designers? In terms of content, the work is the same: it's about designing the right staged space. Classical photography will always have its raison d'être. But in many cases it will no longer be able to meet the requirements that manufacturers have. Sub-areas will look different in the future. Media-neutral thinking is important. We are already developing individual visual languages and aesthetics for different manufacturers in the same segment. In a classic shoot, this would come from the photographer.

The market has changed. Production is becoming more individual, even customized with short time-to-market. Time and flexibility are crucial today. Those who already present product communication at a trade show have competitive advantages - this is possible with CGI. Even if products are changed at the last minute. A classic photo shoot is too linear a process. You look for a location, transport products there and realize at the end that it should have looked different after all. What's more, brand manufacturers today concentrate on new products. The basic range, the cash cow, is neglected. But for social media, the distribution of products via the Internet, this is precisely a crucial area: It's about showing presence, about producing large amounts of content, action, inspiration. Other forms of product presentation, tools and systems are needed so that customers can even find out which products are available. All this must be technically and economically feasible.

The claim on the sooii website is "we are real". Is the topic of "virtual staging" not yet real for customers? For the most part, customers don't know how to approach the topic. We would like to show possibilities through our input. Sensitivity to image aesthetics is quite crucial. And although the image is the result, we are concerned with the entire process, the consultation and the development.

How did you come to specialize in the virtual staging of furniture and objects? There is hardly any other area in which so many different products and themes interact as in the staging of interior products. The designed living space consists not only of a chair and table, but of complex arrangements. Until now, manufacturers have been very focused on their segment and isolated to their products. However, the boundaries between the segments disappear if you look at it from the customer's point of view. One example is fashion: Today, we store for entire outfits, not individual jackets, pants, shoes. The same is increasingly true for interior products. That's what prompted us to say that this area is a huge target for CGI technologically, and at the same time has the potential to build new customer synergies.

Sooii's customers include brands such as Bega, Cor and Interlübke. You also see yourselves as a platform and network for premium design manufacturers. Why? We initially accompany customers in the virtual production of content and inspiration. In the next step, we want to bring this together via joint synergies and platforms and advance digitization in the industry.

How is the network idea so relevant for premium brands today? What synergies do the manufacturers expect? No single manufacturer can solve the challenges of digitization and new structures in the market on its own. The problem is that no one has a master plan for this. Our mission is to work on precisely that.

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