Experience: Shiseido Global Innovation Center, Japan. Features 18/05/2020 Hurrairah bin Sohail discovers why Shiseido chose Sony’s Crystal LED display system to serve as the focal point for its Global Innovation Center in Yokohama, Japan.Research has been at the core of Shiseido’s history. The company has over 100 years of dedication to fundamental research into sensitivity analysis, safety and reliability, and dermatology. This dedication can be seen in Shiseido’s global research centers, located in five countries across the globe. These engage in various research and development activities to study and analyse the skin conditions and makeup activities of consumers in each region. In 2019, operations commenced for a modern research hub known as Shiseido Global Innovation Center [GIC], and also referred to as S/PARK, in Yokohama, Japan. The extensive development facility is meant to act as a way for Shiseido’s research initiatives to be brought to consumers and for this interaction to create a feedback loop to inform the direction the research takes. GIC has a range of spaces where visitors can experience active beauty through original programs based on unique methods or where researchers provide counselling and visitors can purchase personalised cosmetics. In addition, there is a hands-on, experience-based museum where visitors not only can look at exhibitions, but also think about concepts. Tetsuyuki Kushiro, Global Innovation Center project leader, Shiseido, details: “The first and second floors of S/PARK are a dedicated open communication space where visitors and researchers can interact, offering various content under the theme of ‘Place to Encounter Inspirations of Beauty’.” To bring the theme to the audience and tie the disparate spaces together, Shiseido decided to create a truly, eye-catching display. Tetsuyuki from Shiseido says: “We see LED displays in a lot of different places, don’t we? I’ve seen them in quite a few different places and each one is great in its own way, but this time it was going to be somewhere where you’ll get to see it fairly up close so I was worried about the size of the pixels.” Enter Sony’s Crystal LED display system which is used to create a massive display measuring 19.3m x 5.4m with 16K x 4K resolution [15,360 pixels x 4,320 pixels]. A total of 576 units build a display spanning two floors of the building to deliver a vast wall that dominates S/PARK’s open communication space. The display modules are paired with Sony ZRCT-100 and ZRCT-200 controllers and have been tiled with sub-millimetre precision for this endeavour. Tatsuya Aizawa, senior manager, marketing division, Professional Products & Solutions Group, Sony Imaging Products & Solutions, says: “The Crystal LED display system is made up of multiple display units, each measuring 18-in by 16-in, that can be joined together to create a large-screen display with a size and aspect ratio based on each application’s requirements. The display units have no borders, so they can be combined to create immersive, large screen visuals that are completely seamless and appear visually to be made from one single, massive panel.” Tetsuyuki from Shiseido talks about the impact made by Sony’s display system: “With Crystal LED the size of the light sources is exceptionally small, to the point that you don’t notice them at all. And although the large screen is made up of smaller display units, you don’t see where they join. What we’ve created here at S/PARK is the world’s largest Crystal LED display system. I got goose-bumps the moment I saw it.” A specific challenge for Shiseido GIC was to ensure that Sony’s CLED display system had content that matched the level of its capabilities. Tetsuyuki from Shiseido says: “There have been many challenges including considering what to show on this huge yet precise installation. It has to be what symbolises S/PARK. Many ideas were accumulated working together with Sony PCL who oversaw its content creation. The final proposal from Sony exceeded Shiseido’s expectations, to have Yakushima Forest appear in S/PARK at full-size scale with 16K CG animals added to the forest to deliver dynamic and entertainment characteristics to the content.” The end result is a display with content that synchronises and harmonises. According to Tetsuyuki from Shiseido: “Spatial architecture was a key to this arena, and the motif was ‘sticky notes’. A sticky note with an inspiration born from the ‘Encounter’ here dances up in the air and drifts toward the lab on the upper floor. Anything created there again comes down to the first and second floors and reaches the customer.” Tatsuya from Sony adds: “This project is a great example of collaboration between Shiseido and Sony. We are fully impressed by Shiseido which aims to bring new beauty innovations through collaboration going forward, and Sony continues to deliver new value to customers in imaging categories through its products and solutions.” The aims and objectives of Shiseido have been met and Tatsuya says: “All the visitors at S/PARK are overwhelmed by the immersive experience where it seems the entire wall is connected to another world. Beautiful footage surely inspires the researchers. The video content ‘another wonderland’ created by Sony PCL is very popular among small children and S/PARK now seems to be included in the favourite walking route of a nearby nursery. A lab with an entrance lobby where children are having fun, this might be a first in the world. That makes business visitors smile and feel more relaxed, serving as an ice-breaker.” Tetsuyuki from Shiseido adds: “That sense of presence or maybe you can say realism, it is just out of this world. What we wanted to create was something like a separate world right there on that wall. That was what we wanted. It’s the same whether it’s with conventional multi-monitor displays of OLEDs but in the end, you are going to notice the frame. Once you notice the frame, you lose that sense of realism. With Crystal LED display system, the fact that you don’t get that at all is a major advantage.” Tetsuyuki concludes: “To articulate the world of beauty that Shiseido is working towards in this space I’d say that you can’t do without something of this scale and quality."