IMAX VR
A global entertainment brand, translated into an entirely new kind of place.
A new category, with a famous name on the door.
IMAX is one of the most recognized names in cinema. Virtual reality was something else entirely, a nascent, physical, hands-on experience with no established playbook for how it should look, feel or operate at retail scale.
The flagship had to do two jobs at once: live up to the IMAX name, and invent the conventions of a brand-new format from the ground up.
Make the unfamiliar feel inevitable.
A premium entertainment experience depends on more than the technology. Customers had to understand a format they'd never seen, move through it intuitively, and trust it, all inside a space that still read unmistakably as IMAX.
Brand, environment, customer journey, operations and a complex build all had to resolve into a single, coherent experience, and open on schedule.
"The job was to keep brand intent and operational reality pointed at the same outcome, from the first concept sketch to opening day."
- AProgram & project leadership across design, vendors and build
- BCustomer journey and experience definition
- CDesign coordination and brand consistency across physical touchpoints
- DLaunch execution and operational readiness
Experience developed by Jim Gentili. Exact title, employer and team context to be confirmed before publication.
Design the journey, not just the room.
The experience was sequenced like a story, arrival, anticipation, the moment itself, and a return that made people want to bring someone next time. Every surface, screen and sightline was there to move a guest from curiosity to confidence.
Operational decisions were treated as design decisions. How staff greeted guests, how throughput worked, how the space reset between sessions, all of it shaped the brand as much as the visuals did.
One person across the seams.
Brand standards, environment design, vendor coordination and the build schedule usually live in separate rooms. Here they were held together, so a decision about lighting or finish was also a decision about brand and budget, made once, with all of it in view.
That continuity is the point of eleven23: the same judgment carried from the idea through to the thing customers actually walk into.
A flagship that opened, ran and set the template.
The flagship delivered a premium, brand-consistent experience for an entirely new format, and established conventions a multi-location program could build on.
Brand and build, held as one job.
IMAX VR is the clearest example of the eleven23 thesis: the value isn't in any single discipline, it's in keeping strategy, brand, experience and execution aligned across the seams where most projects come apart.