Description:

Ekos is the new venture from David Maisel. David began the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Iron Man in 2008. As a huge fan of the late comic artist Michael Turner, he saw the potential to create a new studio based on his work with Ekos - a place where divergent evolutionary paths collide on a fantastic version of earth.

The Ekos Genesis Gallery website is the debut of this vision and a chance for fans to own digital artworks from Turner, beautifully recoloured in a series of limited edition NFTs. It’s a place to dive deeper into the stories of Turner and Maisel, exploring the provenance behind this unique art collection.

The site begins with a journey through space - we glide past the major events in David and Michael’s lives as they forge their path through pop culture. The glowing years and sepia-toned newspaper covers use the classic passing of time “spinning newspaper” effect updated it into the scrolly-telling era.

The creative concept here is of two souls intertwined by events over time then joined by a host of new collaborators as this project gathers momentum towards launch. We reach earth and transition into the Ekos Genesis art gallery with a floating globe foreshadowing the ecological themes at the heart of the Ekos stories.

Ekos wanted their artworks to be rendered in an immersive gallery space to give visitors a feeling of both David’s respect and passion for the artwork, and its value. The virtual gallery feels like California brutalist meets classical ruin, a beautiful art gallery hidden somewhere on earth, frozen in the golden hour and accessible only by a chosen few.

We elaborated on Ekos’ brand identity elements of black, gold with undertones of art deco fonts and geometry throughout the experience. We wanted to communicate luxury and mystery. It’s a fusion of Hollywood-style combined with elements of disruptive blockchain technology.

In presenting the artworks we wanted to strike a balance between accuracy and ambience. They're crisply rendered to showcase the incredible coloring work of Peter Steigerwald yet are enhanced to feel physical; they move with your cursor position and project glowing lights behind them.

We used elements of “heads up display” design in the art gallery to make the experience feel gamelike and intuitive for users. There’s a map legend overlay showing your position as you scroll through the 3D gallery space and a cursor that acts as if it’s “scanning” each artwork for blockchain metadata.