Sting 25 App

The situation—

A longtime collaborator of RadicalMedia's, Sting approached our team looking to commemorate his twenty-five-year career as a solo artist. Always an innovator, the celebrated musician wanted something more unique than the obligatory world tour.

The challenge—

Tell the artist's story of creativity, activism, and global citizenship using a wealth of archival content. Reframe the format of the boxed set retrospective, by leveraging Sting's embrace of technology and innovation, all while remaining true to the music.

The solution—

A first-of-its-kind digital music experience, Sting 25 blurs the lines between documentary, music app, and coffee table book. Released exclusively on iPad, the extensive retrospective was accompanied by concert performances featuring some of music's biggest stars, available only through the app.

Approaching the project with fresh eyes allowed our team to design unique interfaces to organize and navigate the content, including timeline navigation based on album milestones, which drills down to a pasteboard interface that maintains the same chronology via left/right swipe gestures.

Working directly with the artist and collaborators from different points in his career, we were able to present never-before-seen content that documents the creative process, performances from around the world, and major events that shaped his life.

The instruments a musician play can tell the story of how the songs came together. We captured a selection of Sting's personal instruments through the use of gigapixel photography and a custom 360˚ camera rig, allowing viewers to explore them up close.

Released in conjunction with Sting's 60th birthday, the app featured a concert filmed at the historic Beacon Theater, a show featuring, as the artist put it, "a few of my friends." Proceeds from the one-night event all went to the Robin Hood Foundation.

During the course of developing the app, we worked with the artist on several other projects, including design for a companion album as well as marketing and merchandise for a global tour—including a custom Moleskine iPad case.