Audio-Visual AV Design - Kensington Palace

Kensington Palace

Crown to Couture

CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT / LARGESCALE ANIMATED FILMS / MOTION GRAPHICS / CGI / PROJECTION SHOW / MOTION TYPOGRAPHY / SOUND COMPOSITION / SOUNDSCAPING / AUDIO LICENSING ADVICE / CAPACITIVE-TOUCH / CODING DEVELOPMENT / UNITY / SCRIPTING / VOICE-OVERS / LOCATION RECORDING / FILM EDITS / INSTALLATION

CLIENT

Historic Royal Palaces: Kensington Palace

DESIGNERS

Land Design Studio

HARDWARE

Blue Elephant via Setworks

Crown to Couture, Kensington Palace’s largest and most ambitious exhibition to date opened to the public on 5 April 2023 with AY-PE’s audio and visual designs featuring throughout the galleries.

The exhibition recreates a vibrant Georgian-era party across the State Apartments of the Palace, featuring over 200 iconic outfits and objects from world-famous celebrities, designers and historic collections, the Met Gala, Grammys and the Oscars. It draws fascinating parallels between the world of the red carpet and the world of the Royal Court in the eighteenth century and has featured in all UK national press, New York Times, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Tatler, NBC’s The Today show and many more.

AY-PE was appointed to design and deliver 17 different audio-visual and interactive experiences: marrying the beauty and emotional connection of AV creations, with celebrity, couture and catwalk design.

Highlight 01

Arrival spectacle

Designing a Georgian street scene meets the Met Gala in a playful, stop motion style animated film, projected largescale in the Palace’s Stone Hall. We created a layered, colourful 2D world and combined it with the bespoke illustrations of Gladys Perint Palmer, world famous fashion illustrator. Through a well-paced motion of figures, vehicles, press and paparazzi flashes, the arrival scene and setworks in front are brought to life.

Highlight 02

Sound design for a Palace

AY-PE were also asked to create and deliver the unique sound design and installations which evocatively bring the exhibition to life – from fanfares and orchestral string arrangements, to dance beats and garage. With compositions and soundscapes spanning the State Apartments, AY-PE collaborated with bespoke music composers WMP Studio to elevate the musical score – together creating nine audio elements each with independent location related purpose, but also a need to carry cohesion and an exhibition brand feel across the galleries.

Highlight 03

Exceptional Stories

“It’s not everyday that in one gallery, you get to design an anthemic musical piece to support an iconic Beyonce gown purposely and powerfully stood in front of a throne, then on the same project, compose a historical-contemporary piece to support a projection of a Principal Dancer with the Royal Ballet, gracefully dancing through a Palace room.” Simon Ackerley MD AY-PE

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Highlight 04

Interactive Inspiratoin

One of the questions posed to visitors is what does celebrity mean to them and on that question, AY-PE designed a contemporary styled touchscreen interactive. Working from a visual idea of sleek fashion publications, AY-PE designed the UI and UX for this interactive to be easy and intuitive to operate and stylistically fitting for the exhibition.

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Highlight 05

Vogue film edits

AY-PE were also trusted and fortunate enough to design edits using prestigious Vogue films of Kendall Jenner and Billy Porter – setting the scene for the intensity and excitement of getting ready for the Met Gala.

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AY-PE helped bring the parallels to life, through fantastic AV that saw visitors transported to moments in time, truly bringing the spaces to life.

- Carol Swords, Creative Programming & Interpretation Manager at HRP