^{This following is from Arjen de Vries, Director of Creative Services at Layar.}

Today at Layar, we’re launching a whole new way for brands, advertisers, publishers and agencies to plan, create and execute Augmented Reality and Interactive Print solutions. We call it Layar Creative Studio, but before I get into the details, let me tell you a bit about myself.

My name is Arjen de Vries, and I’m relatively new to the Layar Team as the Director of Creative Services. I’ve previously worked in marketing, communications and advertising at various types of companies, including digital and creative agencies and leading publishers. I have years of experience developing strategies and concepts, as well as brand activation projects, often with strong digital components present.

In the current fragmented media landscape, the consumer has become an active communication recipient and initiator, and we have 24/7 access to information, social relationships and purchases. In order to properly connect with your audience in this new landscape, an approach completely different from that of 10 years ago is needed.

I joined Layar and the exciting world of Augmented Reality because I truly believe that AR has the power to add value to all kinds of businesses and industries, fundamentally changing the way consumers interact with brands in ways unlike anything seen before. Thanks to the growing adoption of smartphones, tablets and technological innovations like Google Glass, AR has quickly grown from something very technical to a basic technology of the masses. The “science fiction” future of AR is becoming more and more real each day.

With AR, it’s possible to instantly activate and engage with your audience. By making the most of the possibilities of their most personal device (camera, GPS, motion sensors, etc.), you can connect with your audience for branding, advertising, marketing and m-commerce purposes.

I joined Layar in March to head up a team dedicated to providing end-to-end service for companies looking to benefit from the possibilities AR has to offer. After a few months of preparation, we’re very proud to introduce the Layar Creative Studio today. The team is based in Amsterdam, but we will likely be expanding it to our offices in the U.S. and Canada soon.

The Layar Creative Studio team is here to help businesses create marketing and advertising solutions based in Augmented Reality to achieve clear objectives. We take the hassles and complications away with end-to-end service, advanced solutions, as well as professional consulting and training to help you get the most out of our tools.

Starting from your needs and objectives, our team of expert strategists, marketers, developers, designers and project managers will work with you to create the best possible AR experience and results. Whether it’s for magazine or newspaper content, print or outdoor advertisements, promotions, packaging or any other marketing and advertising venture – we’ve got you covered.

As founders of the world’s leading mobile AR platform, we know how to get the most out of our technology in order to create and execute outstanding solutions. With the insights we’ve gained from hundreds of thousands of AR campaigns, we’ve developed a deep, fact-based understanding of what does and does not work with AR.

Many of the world’s biggest names – Jaguar, Heineken, Vogue, Reebok, Elle, BMW, Inc., Glamour, Kraft, Walmart, Pepsi – are already making use of AR with Layar, so why not join them?

Let’s talk! If you’re looking for a distinctive way to activate and engage your audience while standing out from your competitors, contact the Layar Creative Studio today or reach out to me directly at arjen@layar.com.

Read our Layar Creative Studio press release.

As augmented reality and interactive print continue to grow, it is becoming clear that many more people now understand that a whole new world is emerging. We now have designers and engineers specifically working on AR projects, and with that comes and increasing amount of theory and best practices for AR user experience.

We recently saw this article by UX Magazine about augmented reality and user experience and we noticed how it related to interactive print in some places. In the article, authors Olli Siebelt and Michael Marina provide some starting guidelines for thinking about user experience when developing augmented reality experiences.

Consider Context
They mention first to categorize and plan your project based on the intended use case, and the same can be said for developing an interactive print campaign with Layar. 

It is important to consider differences in context when enhancing a magazine page versus and billboard ad or product packaging. The experience needs to feel natural to users, and what feels natural will vary between these different scenarios.

Real World Testing
Another tip – to go out and test in the real world before creating your project – can also be translated to interactive print campaigns. It was important for Layar Partner Limebizz to know the environment in which one of its latest campaigns would be displayed.

The bright orange mystery crate displayed in Antwerp’s central station was a very unique use of interactive print for users. Instead of holding a magazine in their hand, they were standing amidst a busy train station with varying lighting throughout the day. The results were terrific!

Design for Mobile
And finally, having a eye for design for the small screen is one of the big points made in the AR UX article. This also applies to interactive print. It’s very important that visual assets are easy to view and read on a mobile device, and that any web-based content linked to from your print is mobile-friendly.

See More In Our Guide!
These are just a few of the great tips we provide in our comprehensive Best Practices Guide! Have a look at the steps you can take toward more effective interactive print campaign creation, including:

• Getting started with interactive print
• Best practices for the Layar Creator
• Concepting your campaign
• “Dos and Don’ts” for instruction pages, calls-to-action and more
• Testing your campaign
• Integrating interactive print into your workflow
• And more!

Frame Magazine, the world’s leading interior design publication with a circulation across 77 countries, has enhanced the artistic pages of its most recent issue with interactive print from Layar.

As the “go-to reference for designers and interior architects,” Frame Magazine continually impresses its readers with not only its content, but with how it presents that content. Special paper, inks and embossed graphics are common to Frame, but now, with Layar, Frame has taken presenting its content to a whole new level.

Readers can “enjoy an even more exciting tour through the world of design,” as editor in chief Robert Thiemann writes in the January/February issue. Readers can view additional photos, watch videos, join discussions on Facebook, buy items and more.

Scanning the cover lets readers watch the cover morph between several other possible covers, with various colors and images. Inside the magazine, scanning pages about an interactive digital installation in Paris lets readers experience that very installation’s “luminous textile panels.” It’s really a sight to behold.

We recently caught up with Thiemann to get the low down on Frame’s most recent issue and the process of implementing Layar. 

How did you hear of Layar?

“One of my colleagues came across Layar while reading a Dutch magazine. She was impressed with the extra digital content provided through the use of the Layar App. She then went to a Layar seminar in July, 2012, to find out more. Her report brimmed with enthusiasm, so we decided to give Layar a go in September.”

What makes Frame’s readers a good audience for interactive print?

“Frame has an image-savvy readership of early adopters, so we thought they might be interested in Layar. Frame magazine historically surprises its audience in many ways: from ever-changing graphics to special paper stocks and cover finishes. We thought Layar would offer yet another way to surprise our readership by letting them experience a connection between offline and online content.”

How was the experience of using the Layar Creator?

“Getting to work with the Layar Creator proved to be very easy. Uploading content and putting buttons on our pages both were a piece of cake. We had more difficulties deciding what exactly to do with Layar and finding extra content for it. We found out that we had to change our way of working by starting to integrate Layar in the editorial process.”

Any plans for the future?

“We will continue working with Layar for the rest of the year and evaluate the results at the end of 2013. If the app has proven to be successful – which I consider it to be when we will have more than 1000 active users – we’ll not only work with it in Frame magazine, but also in its sibling publications Mark and Elephant magazines. 

What’s more, we have already seduced one advertiser to use Layar in their Frame ad and will of course try to get more companies interested. Another challenge will be to not only include video footage, but also other digital content. The real aim is to increase interaction between the magazines and their readership.”

As the summer continues, so does the Layar-sponsored augmented reality design class being taught in California to eager design students at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. To give you a closer look at the class, here’s another video into which you can sink your teeth.

Anyone who knows Layar and follows this blog knows our outspoken co-founder Maarten Lens-FitzGerald gives talks all over the globe on a somewhat regular basis. However, you may not have seen a talk quite like this from Maarten before.

To kick off the design class’ semester, Maarten provided an introduction of Layar, the company’s history and where it stands today, some examples of the platform’s capabilities as well as a look into the future and where Layar thinks augmented reality is headed.

So check out the video below of Maarten’s talk. It’s a quick snapshot that summarizes many key and interesting points surrounding Layar and augmented reality.

This summer Layar is sponsoring the first ever college course on augmented reality design in the United States.

The sessions will be held at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, and will be administered by none other than legendary Sci-Fi author, futurist and AR guru Bruce Sterling. The class will meet for thirteen weekly 5-hour sessions, and will be co-taught by ACCD professor Guillaume Wolf.

Students will mainly be involved in building augmented reality projects for their design portfolios. “I’m going to encourage them to aim a little ahead of the state-of-the-art in today’s AR,” says Bruce Sterling. “In other words, while they familiarize themselves with what is out in the practice today, they need to design for hardware and software capacities 18 to 24 months in the future.”

The class will cover a wide gamut of AR related topics, including:

• AR in theory and practice.


• AR trendspotting.


• AR outside the handset.


• AR as an app, add-on or control interface for other services.


• AR in the art world.


• AR in the city.


• AR in the Futurist Quadrant.

The class got underway last month, and Layar’s Maarten Lens-FitzGerald and Gene Becker were on hand to help kick things off. We’ll have some more to share with you as the summer progresses, but to for starters, have a look at Gene’s opening talk on the importance of user experience and interaction design in augmented reality!