In April 2019, Shiseido opened its Global Innovation Center, the world’s largest cosmetics R&D hub of its kind. Located in Yokohama, Japan, this facility was designed to drive innovation, consumer research and future growth for the brand.

We were tasked with creating an experience to attract visitors to the opening of the GIC, as well as to demonstrate the brand’s innovativeness and scientific knowledge to change people’s perspectives of one of the oldest cosmetic companies in the world.

To achieve these objectives, we built a time machine.

There is beauty in growing old.

Beyond Time is an interactive installation designed for friends, family, and loved ones to speak with one another through time. This project is an immersive experience that transports participants into past and future by digitally aging or age-reversing their faces, and then engaging them in dynamically tailored emotional conversations.

In doing so, we encouraged people to think differently about the effects of aging on their bodies, and to understand that the most beautiful parts of themselves can actually get better with time.

We targeted a millennial audience of both women and men—both of whom perceived the brand as a “mom’s brand”—towards creating a more innovative and modern perception of Shiseido.

To do this, we styled Beyond Time as a higher-concept R&D project designed not to sell more products, but to broaden the definition of future beauty by focusing on emotions and that highlights the brand’s long history of scientific research into the effects of aging.

Beneath its minimalist exterior, the Beyond Time installation contains a considerable amount of technology, including three high-spec computers, Kinect sensors, IoT connected buttons and multiple 4k cameras. Working with Nomura Architects, we designed a contemporary metal-and-glass structure measuring 5m by 2m by 2.33m, and outfitted it with synchronized LEDs, directional microphones and speakers, and variable-opacity privacy glass for a fully immersive experience.

Existing age filters on popular mobile apps like Snapchat and FaceApp offer entertaining but superficial age simulation filters. To achieve the degree of realism necessary for the emotional experience we were looking for, we created a much more powerful experience based on real data provided by a century of Shiseido aging research. This groundbreaking facial modeling system not only generated scientifically-accurate simulations in real time for participants to interact with, it collected enough information over the course of the project to produce one of the world’s largest databases of 3D facial models. To protect data rights, we coordinated with research and legal teams to ensure the responsible management and anonymous storage of data within a secure network under strict and clear usage policies agreed upon by participants in advance.

We spent 14 months on the project: three months on R&D, five months on prototyping, five months on software development, and one month on location performing round-the-clock construction, testing and tweaking to create an installation piece that has become an iconic fixture within the Shiseido GIC.

In the past six months since its launch, Beyond Time has transported participants through 186,000 years in time and sparked over 10,000 different conversations about aging. Most importantly, we’ve shown more than 3,100 people a more positive way of looking at growing old, and helped them learn just how beautiful the journey can be.

The process of developing the project has produced groundbreaking solutions for 3D facial data capture and skin color recognition, and has produced one of the world’s largest databases of 3D facial models with great potential for use in future research into both biogerontology as well as skincare.