Brief:  Aging Business:  “We’ve been in business for over eighty years!” was the quote.  The story was that the board was reluctant to change their business model for the internet, letting all those “upstart” companies make the mistakes. Hence, they became old, outdated, and left behind, by the end of the commercial, the entire board room was covered in cobwebs and dust, the everyone was nearing death, or had died (right there on camera, we watch the chairman age on camera and another, who’s head falls to the table with a thud).

(1,2)   I was required to design a board room that could be both old school and, or, new school, but had the looming paranoia of forefather supervision.  At first we wanted to build from scratch on stage (see drawing, 3), but the scale of the board room soon out-grew our budgetary constraints, so we found a location that suited our staid manner and clubhouse ethic.

The director had a vision of a glorious chandelier over the large conference table, but again, finances eliminated the possibility for something custom - except, that I proposed we tie the corporate logo into the lighting design - I came up with the name “Global Communications” (catchy huh?), and the simple symbol of a globe’s latitude and longitude lines., these easily interpreted into the interlocking CAM-router-cut-pieces that make up the foam-core light fixture over the conference table (held together with tape - no screws - and weighing less than 25 pounds).

(3)   An early conceptual sketch, illustrating the 
idea of the ‘future past’ as outlined above.  We ended up not being able to build on stage, but having to go to location.  Each of the upright pieces was to hang, hovering around the conference table, and containing the portrait image of a fore father, while beneath each portrait was in bas relief a corporate symbol.