The Playable Logo is a neat little bit of interactive art created as an unused proof of concept for a magical introduction to the Syng Space mobile app. As Senior Prototyping Engineer at Syng, I was given a lot of creative freedom to devise ways of marrying the platform’s interaction design mechanics with the brand’s central design tenets. Starting with the iconic three dot pattern logo and an incredible sample library of singing bowl recordings created by Damian Wagner that comprise the brand’s sonic signature, I collaborated with sound designer Chris Lane to build a standalone iOS app in Unity that encouraged dynamic interaction with the logo, treating it as a sensitive and responsive digital musical instrument.

Much of the interaction mechanics of the Syng Space app involves dragging sound sources from one space to another. So this experience is meant to breadcrumb new users into the metaphor of dragging a source from first principles with something benign looking but highly spatialized, while also mimicking the nature of playing with a set of crystal singing bowls. We tried to create something that would effectively work as an ambient music performance interface, just as stimulating when played with little tapping and holding gestures as it would be when it’s dragged around wildly, flying around all over (and off) the screen, the dots smacking into each other. It was an absolute pleasure working on this with Chris and Damian. Definitely one of my all-time favorite projects.