Qiddiya CITY
Blue Sky Concept
Over more than two years, Dave was contracted to ThinkOTS as Creative Director and Senior Art Director, contributing to the development of 15+ IP-specific blue-sky concepts for Qiddiya City. Working across a diverse portfolio of globally recognised entertainment properties, the projects explored entirely new possibilities for immersive environments, attractions and destination experiences. From early creative strategy and storytelling through to world-building, guest experience and visual direction, each concept was developed to establish a compelling creative foundation for a one-of-a-kind experience. All projects remain under NDA and are currently progressing through various stages of development.
Client: Pete Ford @ ThinkOTS
CLARITY
Every great immersive experience needs a clear idea at its centre. Working with established IP brings rich worlds, characters and stories, but also a complex network of creative expectations, brand requirements and physical constraints. Dave’s role was to help distil each property into the ideas, emotions and experiences that mattered most, creating a clear creative vision capable of guiding a much larger design and development process.
POSSIBILITY
Blue-sky thinking created the opportunity to move beyond familiar interpretations of each IP and ask a more ambitious question: what could this world become if guests were able to physically step inside it? Across more than 15 concepts, Dave helped lead multidisciplinary creative exploration spanning immersive environments, attractions, storytelling, placemaking, interactive experiences and entertainment. The objective was not simply to recreate existing worlds, but to discover new experiences that could only exist in a destination such as Qiddiya City.
TRANSFORMATION
The resulting concepts transformed stories and IP into tangible experience propositions, establishing the creative DNA from which future environments, attractions and guest journeys could grow. Through creative direction, visual development and experience design, abstract ideas were shaped into coherent worlds that could be communicated, evaluated and advanced by wider project teams. Today, these concepts sit at various stages of development as part of Qiddiya City’s evolving entertainment landscape.
