Harry Guloien
November 29, 2024

Design and Visual Assets

Our Wizards Behind the Curtain are the creative and technical driving forces behind the tools and resources we create to bring major projects to life and support community engagement.

Our Wizards Behind the Curtain are the creative and technical driving forces behind the tools and resources we create to bring major projects to life and support community engagement. With millions of assets created from project fly-throughs to immersive engagement portals, we caught up with front-end developer Harry Gulioen to chat with them about an asset they have developed and to outline the impact it made on a key project.


Digital post-It-notes

I'm really proud of a post-it-note style comment board for a portal page we were improving that is all about engagement with the wider community (it’s called "Get involved") The client wanted a way to share information but also encourage the community to submit their own ideas and interacting with other peoples ideas by enabling them to vote.

Used by the Star of the South wind farm project in Gippsland, Victoria, the core of this tool is the benefit-sharing program and starting a conversation to hear about the opportunities and challenges facing the local community and their big ideas for how we could help address them if Star of the South is approved and proceeds to construction. The two key questions posted were:

  • What does your community already have that we could help build on?
  • What challenges does your community face that we could help solve?

Developing any asset always poses a challenge and, in this case, my thoughts were based on how the idea, "sounds like social media", so I thought that we could display the comments right there on a section of the page while allowing people to "like" them much like many social media platforms. The challenge was working out the layout and creating an interface for the client to approve the ideas before posting them publicly on the page.

We overcame the challenge by embracing the post-it/card look. The layout offers a nice balance that allows enough space on the space to portray "this is important" and also provides a good deal of interactivity (liking comments, clicking them for an expanded view, including any images the commentator may have included and, of course, commenting yourself).

This post-it-note use our Community Analytics – Content Management System (CMS), where the client can view and approve the ideas before they are shared publicly. From there, an API (Application Programming interface) shares information and JavaScript for coding the page.

I like this asset because it’s a visually appealing comment board, and I love that real stakeholders interact with it by leaving and liking comments. The best part is that this tool and the thinking behind it we can repurpose for another portal and project that could benefit from this tool; it’s now easy to add!

And it would make sense to do so as, the tool has allowed us to pose some questions pertinent to the project and allow stakeholders and people affected to give real ideas or promote that of others by liking them- and it's working! I think that’s a beautiful thing and speaks to the heart of community engagement.

Procurement Packages

It’s always interesting to design something for a different type of community. Normally we design assets for consumption by the public to understand the details, scale and scope of major infrastructure projects, so it was great to work on a project designed for the construction and infrastructure industry, a Procurement Packages display tool.

This is a new way of converting data for our interactive engagement portals and then displaying it for businesses wishing to tender for opportunities within the program of works on the the Warringah Freeway Upgrade - https://caportal.com.au/rms/wfu/procurement

The challenge we had was to be able to upload the XLXS files provided by the client each month and have a page automatically populated with updated procurement packages. To overcome this challenge, we created a tool that converts the XLXS to JSON, which is then used to populate the page with the new procurement packages and their updated status. We were also able to use the categories and subcategories from the XLXS to create a dynamic filter that allows users to specify what they want to see. All this is made from the data on the XLXS, so if there are new categories, those filters will be created automatically, with the tool being designed with some creative use of JavaScript.

I like this asset because I know it makes a genuine difference to the industry, as all businesses need opportunities to engage with major projects, and this tool allows that to happen. It has a tangible purpose with stakeholders interacting with it regularly - the contracts on that page directly influence who's doing what on a large infrastructure project, and I get to ensure that the data sorts itself in a way that’s visually appealing and easy to filter with little human monthly maintenance required. It’s a simple solution to a challenge and one that works well.

And we have seen the benefits across the project as this tool helps support the project with the critical construction phase by engaging with suppliers ensuring procurement information is readily available to ensure the project can reach the right network of suppliers and continue to meet delivery project milestones.

from our clients

Spatial are my go-to for solutions

Spatial are my go-to for solutions nobody has dreamt up yet! They have an incredible knack for combining tomorrows tech solutions with creativity, intuitive UX and analytics. The results are engaging interfaces that are impactful and ultimately bridge the gap between project and stakeholders.
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Kate Kernaghan, Company Director, Factotum Communications

They look tremendous, the team have done amazing work!

Our booth very popular - the corflute poster was so incredible to point at our ideas, even at a concept level. Well done to you and the Spatial Media team!
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Rainer Knobloch, Co-Founder - Strategy and Operations

It was a pleasure to work with everyone

Spatial Media masterfully brought our CETO wave energy technology to life and provided a glimpse into how we're harnessing the immense power of the ocean to create clean, renewable electricity. Thank you to Spatial Media - Visual Engagement Solutions for their incredible work on this animation!
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Brighid Jay, Chief Commercial Officer, Carnegie Clean Energy

A very straightforward and fun process for EnergyAustralia

From the initial kick off meeting to the final video, it was a very straightforward and fun process to work with Spatial Media. The final video is outstanding and really helped bring the project to life for our stakeholders. Highly recommended.
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Matt Bruers, Development Director, Wooreen BESS, EnergyAustralia

Top shelf solutions for North East Link project

Spatial Media offers top shelf solutions that help tell the often intricate stories around the construction of major infrastructure. From animations to 3D models, dealing with Spatial has been seamless, and the end results have been first class.
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Jamie Aldridge, Communications Manager, Spark – North East Link – D&C 

Airside Driving Simulator an important part of the training program

It can be storming outside. It could be night time. Any time of the day or night we can create these simulations. It’s very flexible.
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Niel Young, Training Coordinator, Brisbane Airport

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Spatial Media is an excellent partner and we’ve been impressed by the work the team has produced for Melbourne Airport to help inform our travellers and community about our terminal upgrades and new runway. They are great to deal with and deliver a polished product with creative thinking and a can-do attitude.
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Andrew Lund, Head of Media and Communications, Melbourne Airport

They are our go to tech-savvy experts with huge amounts of creative flair!

COVID19 social distancing restrictions made having our large scale community event nearly impossible, so we decided to take our face-to-face event online. Spatial worked really closely with us to develop the concept, design and platform that would host our virtual community event. The Spatial team are exceptionally creative, with a fantastic ability to bring your idea to fruition in a way you never thought possible. They made our pen on paper scribble into something that over 45k stakeholders visited online, more than what we could have reached in person. Thank you
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Emily Divitaris, Senior Communications Advisor, WestConnex

Valuable long-term partnership with Brisbane Airport Corporation

The Spatial Media team are always professional, well organised and continuously deliver high quality content pieces on time and on budget. They bring new ideas to the table and constantly adapt to changing requirements. I would highly recommend Spatial Media to all.
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Lauren Graham, Head of Commercial Marketing, Brisbane Airport Corporation