# Daniel Samson: full portfolio > Executive Creative Director building things people can play with, not just messages they're meant to believe. Telling people what to think doesn't change them. Putting something in their hands does. I've built a career on that since 2008, as a creative director and technologist who turns abstract, technical or unglamorous ideas into experiences people can play with, for the likes of Nike, Coca-Cola and WWF. I lead teams across XR, 3D, immersive web, experiential design, and for the last few years AI. I've done it at Media.Monks, Subvrsive, B-Reel, Uncanny, Hogarth and AllofUs, across London, Singapore and Rotterdam. Right now I'm studying again, a second master's at SCI-Arc in Los Angeles in Fiction and Entertainment, this time focusing on building whole worlds rather than single moments. The brief I'm always after is the one everyone else has written off as impossible to make interesting. ## Reborn 2.0 *A cinematic digital journey through Coca-Cola's sustainability mission* URL: https://danielsamson.com/project/coca-cola-reborn-2 - Client: Coca-Cola - Agency: Subvrsive - Role: Creative Director - Year: 2025 - Type: Immersive Web Sustainability stories tend to lecture. This one plays. Reborn 2.0 is a digital experience that turns Coca-Cola's path to recycling into something you explore rather than read — a journey through 'second life' products and innovations, told with the fizz of gaming and the polish of cinema. ### Objective To tell Coca-Cola's sustainability story with the same energy as the product — and make people want to lean in, not skim past. ### Challenge ESG messaging has a way of going grey. Coca-Cola wanted to talk about circular design with real passion, and the danger was the usual one: worthy, corporate, easy to ignore. ### Solution So we refused to make a brochure. As Creative Director, I led the vision in partnership between TOAST and Subvrsive under primary agency OpenX, building a playable, story-driven journey through Coca-Cola's 'second life' innovations — sustainability as a world to move through, powered by dynamic gaming visuals. ### Execution I directed the fusion of 3D, film, and real-time gaming into one seamless web experience. Cinematic transitions carry users from one recycled-material innovation to the next, the energy never letting up — but the message underneath always staying clear. ### Impact Reborn 2.0 proved ESG storytelling can carry the charge of a product campaign. By giving recycling the fizz of a game, it turned Coca-Cola's environmental commitments into something people chose to explore — and remembered. ### Capabilities WebGL, Gaming, Storytelling ## Dirt is Good SXSW *An interactive SXSW London installation where mess meets meaning* URL: https://danielsamson.com/project/persil-dirt-is-good - Client: Persil / OMO - Agency: Subvrsive - Role: Creative Director - Year: 2025 - Type: Experiential Where mess meets meaning. For SXSW London, we built a multi-sensory installation around a simple, stubborn truth: play is essential to growth, and dirt really is good. Visitors made their own art out of colour, motion, and movement — tackling a football challenge in a motion-tracked LED zone, then watching Boston Dynamics' Spot robot spray that movement onto a shirt they took home. ### Objective To make 'Dirt Is Good' something you could feel, not just read — and hand SXSW London a show-stopper for its very first edition. ### Challenge A brand philosophy is an easy thing to print and a hard thing to prove. Persil wanted attendees to live the idea that mess and play matter — and it had to land as the flagship moment of a debut festival. ### Solution As Creative Director, I built an environment where getting it 'wrong' was the whole point: visitors made art out of movement. TOAST delivered it with Subvrsive, WPP Media, and Hogarth, pairing a motion-tracked LED zone with robotics to make an abstract idea tangible, joyful, and impossible not to share. ### Execution Take the football challenge inside the LED zone, and your movement became the artwork — captured live and sprayed onto a takeaway shirt by Spot, the robot dog. Personal, physical, and reliable enough to run all day in a live festival crowd. ### Impact We turned a brand line into a movement. As the centrepiece of SXSW London's first edition, it gave people a memorable expression of 'Dirt Is Good' — and a shirt that carried the idea out of the venue and onto the street. ## Ranger Buddies Quest *Interactive wildlife conservation experience for children* URL: https://danielsamson.com/project/ranger-buddies-quest - Client: Mandai Wildlife Reserve - Agency: Media.Monks - Role: Creative Director - Year: 2022 - Type: Interactive Experience Hand a child a pair of binoculars and a mission, and a zoo becomes a world worth protecting. Ranger Buddies Quest turns a visit to the Mandai Wildlife Reserve into an adventure across 28 hectares — scientifically accurate, narrative-driven, and built entirely around play. ### Objective To get children to care about conservation by letting them do it — turning the Reserve into a smart playground with a story at its heart. ### Challenge This is a generation raised on screens, visiting a park full of real animals. The trick was using the screen to push them toward the wildlife, not away from it. ### Solution As Creative Director, I led the vision across UX, product design, content, and technology — and we built the whole thing around a piece of custom hardware: smart binoculars. Children became Rangers, guided by the ancient order COSCAS to protect wildlife, completing missions, unlocking learning points, and earning badges. Touchscreen-and-Kinect outposts turned the park itself into the game board. ### Execution I directed how the binoculars, outposts, and app fit together across the physical and the digital. The binoculars spotted animals, ran the mini-games, and carried the narrative; the outposts deepened it; and a companion app gave parents live tracking, mission control, and the right questions to ask along the way. ### Impact Ranger Buddies Quest changed how children meet wildlife, and went on to become part of a nationwide education programme. It won widely — including a People's Voice Webby in 2024 — and cemented Mandai as a leader in conservation education. ### Capabilities Custom Hardware, Mobile App Development, Interactive Storytelling, Kinect, UX Design ### Awards - Webby Awards 2024 – People's Voice Winner - Adfest – Mobile Lotus, Bronze - Marketing Awards 2024 – Silver x 4 - Event Marketing Awards 2024 – Best Gamification, Bronze - Spikes 2024 – Shortlists x 2 - ADC – Finalist ### Collaborators Bobby Tay, Mustapha Zainal, Daniel Samson, Patricio Lobos, AS Anam, Vanessa Lim, Huang Yizhen, Joanna Lim, Keith Tang, Kayla Chia, Delano Kamp, Khin Thapyay, Alireza Sadeh, Emma Gilpin Live project: https://rangerbuddies.com/en/home ## Tomorrowland *Unlocking interactive experiences through Coca-Cola cans* URL: https://danielsamson.com/project/coca-cola-tomorrowland - Client: Coca-Cola - Agency: Subvrsive - Role: Creative Director - Year: 2024 - Type: Immersive Web Scan a can, step through a portal. The Tomorrowland Experience turned a Coca-Cola can into the key to three interactive worlds — one where you build your own DJ set, two more that blend music, visuals, and play. The magic of the festival, carried far beyond its gates. ### Objective To bottle a little of Tomorrowland and hand it to a global audience — an immersive, multi-world experience that lived in your pocket. ### Challenge Festival magic is hard to export. Coca-Cola wanted something that resonated with people on the ground in Belgium and music fans everywhere else — rich enough to matter, light enough to open on a phone. ### Solution As Creative Director, I led the design of three distinct worlds, each unlocked by a can. One put you behind the decks, mixing tracks and driving live visuals; the others pulled you into music-led exploration and story. Three reasons to keep playing, all tying you back to the brand and the festival. ### Execution We built it in WebGL with custom audio and visual interfaces. Scan a can, choose a portal — and you're either dropping a beat with real-time visual feedback or wandering somewhere the music leads. ### Impact The experience drew festival-goers and a worldwide audience closer to Coca-Cola, and set a new bar for multi-world interactive work — proof that music, visuals, and story can share one space and still feel effortless. ### Capabilities WebGL, Audio Interface, Interactive Music Creation, Immersive Storytelling ## Live The Journey *Bringing the beauty of the French Alps to grounded travellers* URL: https://danielsamson.com/project/evian-live-the-journey - Client: Evian - Agency: Media.Monks - Role: Creative Director - Year: 2021 - Type: Immersive Web Travel was off the table, so we brought the Alps to the living room. Live The Journey told the story of Evian's 15-year water purification through WebAR — scan a custom bottle and a hand-drawn 3D world unfolds, vintage travel-poster nostalgia rendered in modern WebGL. A small escape, when nobody could leave the house. ### Objective To launch Evian's limited-edition bottles with an experience that did what the water does — take you somewhere — when actually going anywhere was impossible. ### Challenge Lockdown grounded everyone. Evian wanted to give people the beauty of the French Alps from their kitchen table, tied to a bottle that echoed the slow, timeless journey of the water itself. ### Solution Every custom bottle became a doorway. Scan it, and a unique 3D story carried you up through the Alps. As creative lead, I set the concept and visual direction — marrying organic, hand-drawn brush strokes and travel-poster romance to the precision of AR. ### Execution Built in WebGL and Unity, with line art and watercolour bringing the water's path to life. I directed voiceover in English, Mandarin, and Korean, and the experience rolled out across Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. ### Impact It beat sales targets by 7% and gave grounded travellers a genuine moment of escape. Each bottle, each story, deepened the connection — and the work was recognised with an FWA award. ### Capabilities WebAR, 3D Narrative, Unity, WebGL ### Awards - FWA of the Day Winner ## Expedium Verse® *Immersive digital platform for medical marketing* URL: https://danielsamson.com/project/expedium - Client: Johnson & Johnson Medical - Agency: Media.Monks - Role: Creative Director - Year: 2022 - Type: Immersive Web Medical devices have always been sold across a desk. We moved one into 3D and AR. An interactive product page let surgeons explore the Expedium Verse® device in detail — and repositioned Johnson & Johnson as a brand willing to lead, not follow. ### Objective To launch the Expedium Verse® Fenestrated Screw in Japan with a digital experience that engaged surgeons and showed the device's construction and function in a way a brochure never could. ### Challenge Face-to-face detailing was no longer enough to convey what makes an advanced device different. The benefits lived in the engineering — and the engineering needed to be seen, not described. ### Solution We built an interactive 3D product page and AR experience that opened the device up: its construction, its function, its impact on patient mobility — all explorable in the surgeon's own hands. ### Execution Designed for desktop and mobile, it let surgeons rotate, zoom, and pull the device apart virtually — closing the distance between product and professional. ### Impact On-site engagement rose 58%, with surgeons spending an average of five minutes in the AR feature. It deepened understanding of the product and positioned Johnson & Johnson as a genuine innovator, making the case for digital-first medical marketing. ### Capabilities AR, 3D Product Page, Immersive Web Development ## Air Max 270 React *Immersive Instagram experience for product launch* URL: https://danielsamson.com/project/nike-air-max-270-react - Client: Nike - Agency: B-Reel - Role: Creative Lead - Year: 2019 - Type: Social Campaign One shoe, six worlds. We launched the Nike Air Max 270 React as an immersive Instagram experience — a set of interactive 'Nike worlds' that showed off the shoe's design and let a young, sports-driven audience play their way into the product. ### Objective To launch the Air Max 270 React where its audience already lived — and make the launch something they wanted to explore, not scroll past. ### Challenge This audience grew up on social and can smell a banner ad. The shoe's design and performance had to come through, and Instagram had to be the playground, not just the poster. ### Solution As Creative Lead, I co-led six immersive 'Nike worlds', each tuned to a different facet of the shoe's design and cultural roots. I 3D modelled the shoe itself and directed the art for the 3D teams, and we leaned hard on Instagram's native toys — video, stories, easter eggs — to reward the curious. ### Execution Each world had its own look pulled from the shoe's inspirations, stitched together with interactive stories and hidden surprises. Native Instagram integration meant users could fall through one world into the next without ever leaving the app. ### Impact The campaign landed squarely with its audience, driving high engagement and strong feedback, and lifting Nike's presence on the platform with something that actually fit the way young people use it — proof of social as a place for real storytelling, not just reach. ### Capabilities Instagram Integration, Interactive Storytelling, 3D Modelling, Social Campaign ## Closer DJ Experience *Interactive app for live-streaming DJ performances* URL: https://danielsamson.com/project/richie-hawtin-closer - Client: Richie Hawtin - Agency: B-Reel - Role: Creative Lead - Year: 2019 - Type: App A DJ set is a kind of magic trick — you hear the result, you never see the hands. CLOSER shows the hands. As Creative Lead at B-Reel, I co-led an interactive audiovisual app that lets you take Richie Hawtin's performances apart: switch camera angles, mute and solo audio layers, and watch his creative process unfold in real time. ### Objective To let people experience a Hawtin set from the inside — and finally see how a live performance is actually built. ### Challenge A standard concert video flattens everything into one feed. Hawtin wanted fans to get under the hood — to control the individual pieces and understand the complexity for themselves. ### Solution We designed CLOSER around three stacked screens. Toggle a sound layer, cut to a different angle, follow his hands across the gear — every choice deconstructs the set a little more, and makes the experience yours. ### Execution An overhead shot anchors the setup, with control over decks, effects, synths, and drums, plus the freedom to jump between crowd views and tight equipment close-ups. Built on cutting-edge multimedia and live-streaming tech for real-time interaction with no loss of quality. ### Impact CLOSER redrew the boundaries of what a live concert video could be, setting a new standard for interactive music where fans remix and reinterpret a set as it happens — and fully realising Hawtin's vision of technology and music as one instrument. ### Capabilities Live Streaming, User Experience, App Design, Audio Live project: https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/20/21029821/richie-hawtin-closer-app-dj-concert-techno-audio-visual ## London Mithraeum *Digital companion for exploring Roman artefacts* URL: https://danielsamson.com/project/london-mithraeum - Client: Bloomberg & Museum of London - Agency: AllofUs - Role: Lead Creative Technologist - Year: 2017 - Type: Digital Exhibit Beneath modern London sits a Roman temple, and around it, the everyday objects of people who lived here two thousand years ago. At AllofUs, I co-led a digital companion for the London Mithraeum, inside Bloomberg's European HQ, that gave those artefacts their stories back — through interactive, animated narratives. ### Objective To make the artefacts and history of Roman London something visitors could feel close to, not just look at. ### Challenge A fragment in a case is easy to walk past. The task was to make ancient Roman London genuinely engaging for a modern visitor standing in front of it. ### Solution We used animation and storytelling to bring chosen artefacts to life, opening a window onto the technology and culture of the time. ### Execution Each artefact was carefully paired with its own animated story, the companion guiding visitors through Roman life and the surprising sophistication of the era. ### Impact The companion drew visitors in, turning quiet objects into living history — and connecting the city's distant past to the people walking through it today. ### Capabilities Interactive Storytelling, Digital Exhibit, Prototyping Live project: https://www.londonmithraeum.com/ ## Scalp Quest VR *Virtual reality experience for educating beauty influencers* URL: https://danielsamson.com/project/scalp-quest-vr - Client: P&G - SGIC - Agency: Media.Monks - Role: Creative Director - Year: 2021 - Type: Virtual Reality How do you make a room full of beauty influencers care about dandruff? Let them feel the itch. As Creative Director at Media.Monks, I led a VR experience for P&G's Singapore Innovation Center that takes you deep into an affected scalp — with haptic feedback simulating the irritation until you find the treatment that stops it. ### Objective To teach influencers and CEOs about dandruff treatments by making them experience the problem, not just hear about it. ### Challenge Dandruff isn't an obviously thrilling subject — least of all for an audience of beauty influencers and executives. ### Solution So we made it visceral: a VR world where users explore the scalp and test treatments through play, with haptics turning the itch into something they could actually feel. ### Execution Interactive gameplay, dynamic graphics, and vibrating controllers held the discomfort in the user's hands until the right treatment brought relief. ### Impact Turning product education into empathy did the work no slide deck could — making the effectiveness of the treatment something the audience felt, and remembered. ### Capabilities VR, Haptic Feedback, Interactive Gameplay ## Convexity Experience *Interactive recruitment tool based on company principles* URL: https://danielsamson.com/project/convexity-experience - Client: Convexity - Agency: Media.Monks - Role: Creative Director - Year: 2020 - Type: Immersive Web Most job applications are a form. This one was a constellation. We turned Convexity's core principles into an interactive WebGL experience, mapping each value to a star — equal parts storytelling platform and a filter that quietly sorted the right candidates from the rest. ### Objective To turn Convexity's principles into a recruitment experience that actually conveyed what the company was like to work for. ### Challenge Recruitment tools are usually static and say almost nothing about culture. We had to make Convexity's 13 principles into something a candidate would want to explore — and that revealed the company's ethos as they did. ### Solution As Creative Director, I led an immersive WebGL piece that set each principle as a star in a constellation. Exploring the values became the experience — a compelling way to show culture that also acted as a self-selecting filter for aligned candidates. ### Execution Click a star and its value opened up, dynamic animation guiding the way through. Simple but immersive, it let applicants feel what Convexity was really about before they ever applied. ### Impact It lifted the whole recruitment process, drawing in people who genuinely cared about the company's values — and producing more meaningful applications and a stronger fit between hires and culture. ### Capabilities WebGL, Interactive Storytelling, Immersive Web Development ### Awards - FWA of the Day ## Our Planet *Interactive digital platform for environmental education* URL: https://danielsamson.com/project/our-planet - Client: WWF & Netflix - Agency: B-Reel - Role: Creative Lead - Year: 2019 - Type: Immersive Web A documentary ends when the screen goes dark. We didn't want this one to. For the launch of the Emmy-winning Netflix and WWF series 'Our Planet', we built a platform that carried the message past the credits — letting people explore the seven habitats from the series, dig into the science, and pledge their voice for climate justice. ### Objective To turn an audience that watched 'Our Planet' into one that acted on it. ### Challenge Inspiration fades fast once the episode's over. We had to hold onto it — immersing people in the series' environmental challenges and giving them a way to do something, all while sitting seamlessly alongside the Netflix experience. ### Solution I led the platform around the seven habitats from the series. An explorable globe let people travel the world's environmental challenges, and 'Voice for the Planet' gave them a way to pledge their support for climate justice. ### Execution An immersive WebGL experience of interactive storytelling, behind-the-scenes film, infographics, and explorable habitats. Pledges gathered on a living globe, visualising global support — the first platform of its kind to connect directly with Netflix. ### Impact In three weeks it drew over 1.5 million visits, with 110,000 people completing the globe. 'Voice for the Planet' converted at 70% — 50,500 sign-ups and 370,000 clicks through to WWF — helping turn 'Our Planet' from a documentary into a movement. ### Capabilities WebGL, Interactive Storytelling, Data Visualisation, UI/UX Design ### Awards - Webby People's Voice Winner 2020 Live project: https://www.ourplanet.com/ ## Design System *Unified design system for a fragmented media ecosystem* URL: https://danielsamson.com/project/red-bull-global-design-system - Client: Red Bull - Agency: W12 Studios - Role: Creative Lead - Year: 2016 - Type: Product Design Sport, culture, music, adventure — Red Bull was everywhere, and looked a little different everywhere it went. As Creative Technologist at W12 Studios, I designed and protoyped a new design language and unified system that brought order to a sprawling ecosystem of microsites and platforms, flexible enough to run across 64 variations of the .com experience. ### Objective To give Red Bull's fragmented digital presence one coherent voice — without taking away the flexibility different markets depend on. ### Challenge A brand spanning that many worlds had ended up with a media landscape to match: scattered properties, each speaking its own design language. ### Solution We built the answer on an atomic design philosophy — modular components that could recombine across platforms, and had to hold up across 64 variations of the .com experience in multiple languages. ### Execution The system was made to flex: modular cards and structures that assembled in different ways for different content needs, while keeping the brand unmistakably itself throughout. ### Impact The result brought consistency to Red Bull's digital presence across every property — coherent where it needed to be, local where it had to be. ### Capabilities Design System, Atomic Design, Web Development Live project: https://www.redbull.com ## Decor TV *Transforming televisions into high-end ambient design features* URL: https://danielsamson.com/project/samsung-decor-tv - Client: Samsung - Agency: W12 Studios - Role: Creative Technologist - Year: 2016 - Type: Product Design A television is dead weight the moment it's switched off — a black rectangle on the wall. Decor TV asked what it could be instead: an internal exploration that reimagined the screen as an ambient design feature, showing curated visuals when idle and earning its place in the room. ### Objective To explore future concepts for Samsung that turned the television into a high-end ambient display, at home in a contemporary interior. ### Challenge We wanted to move the TV from functional object to design feature — and to back the idea up with a fully working prototype, not just a mood board. ### Solution As Creative Technologist, I co-led the project around a 'living surface' concept: an interface that let the screen come alive with ambient visuals whenever it wasn't being watched. ### Execution We prototyped the whole interface and wired it to the hardware, letting users dress the screen in anything from abstract art to nature scenes — making the TV part of the room rather than an intrusion on it. ### Impact Though never released commercially, Decor TV was a key exploration into blending technology with interior design, and the working prototype fed directly into Samsung's longer-term thinking about the connected home. ### Capabilities Ambient Display, UI/UX Design, Product Design ## Global Design System *An immersive, scalable experience for a global audience* URL: https://danielsamson.com/project/kia-com-design-system - Client: Kia Global - Agency: Media.Monks - Role: Creative Director - Year: 2021 - Type: Product Design A global rebrand only works if it survives contact with local markets. As part of Kia's, we built a comprehensive design system for Kia.com — a personalised, immersive journey that unified five regions and scaled across languages, all carrying the new brand premise, 'Movement that Inspires.' ### Objective To express Kia's rebrand in a flexible global system — personal for every user, while meeting the real demands of very different regions. ### Challenge Five regions, each with its own requirements, multiple languages, one brand identity that had to hold together across all of it. ### Solution Leading from pitch to delivery, I worked with a multidisciplinary team on a modular system that let each region shape its own content while staying true to the new identity. The approach was research-led, grounded in competitor analysis and user surveys. ### Execution We built 92 adaptable page templates. I guided the design, aligned the teams, and ran the client workshops that kept everyone behind one vision — flexible enough for local needs, disciplined enough to protect the global brand. ### Impact The system unified Kia's global presence and handed local teams room to adapt — a scalable, personalised experience from first look to purchase, true to 'Movement that Inspires.' ### Capabilities Design System, UX Design, Global Scalability, Modular Components, Commerce ### Collaborators Sally Kim, Sophia McDermott, Vanessa Lim, Huang Yizhen, Yooin Choo, SC Wong, Doyeon Lee, Yujin Joung, Keith Tang, Royston Phang, Kayla Chia, Sarah Lew Live project: https://www.kia.com/kr ## Urban Mobility Index *A data-driven interactive platform for visualising urban mobility* URL: https://danielsamson.com/project/here-urban-mobility-index - Client: HERE - Agency: B-Reel - Role: Creative Lead - Year: 2019 - Type: Product Design Mobility data is dense, dry, and easy to ignore. The HERE Urban Mobility Index makes it something you want to explore — an interactive platform that visualises transport efficiency, infrastructure, and sustainability across global cities, built for the planners and policymakers who shape how cities move. ### Objective To let people explore and compare mobility data across global cities, and surface the insights that make urban transport better. ### Challenge HERE had rich, complex data and a hard problem: present it densely enough to be useful, simply enough that comparing cities never felt like work. ### Solution As Creative Lead, I led a clear, confident interface for big data sets — dynamic visualisation of metrics like transport efficiency, sustainability, and infrastructure readiness, with city-to-city comparison built in from the start. ### Execution Clean, real-time visualisations let users filter by city, transport type, and sustainability metric, while a ranking system put the top-performing cities front and centre. ### Impact The Index became a genuine resource for planners and policymakers weighing decisions on infrastructure and sustainability — and reinforced HERE's standing as a leader in urban mobility. ### Capabilities Data Visualisation, Interactive Web, Urban Analytics Live project: https://urbanmobilityindex.here.com ## Contact - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/dlsamson - Substack: https://danielsamson.substack.com/ - Email: daniel.l.samson@gmail.com