BMO Wishing Fountain

Interactive Kinetic Sculpture & Digital 3D Experience

Creative Director | Bank Of Montréal, Mosaic

To celebrate its bicentennial, The Bank of Montréal wanted to put a modern twist on an old tradition: the wishing fountain. Visitors could choose a category, make a wish, and potentially be selected by BMO to make that wish come true. Using over 50,000 flip dots, the fountain responded dynamically to public wishes—made in person over a custom mobile web application—creating a ripple effect that symbolized the timeless act of tossing a coin into a fountain. This innovative experience engaged communities across North America, inspiring over 25,000 wishes and fostering meaningful connections between the bank and its audiences.

Collaboration

The colossal effort involved in creating such a multifaceted project saw collaboration between the agency, client, sculptors, engineers, and developers—each group with their own creative leads.

I led the digital team throughout development and production, while working with the other directors and artists to maintain schedules, budgets and manage resources. This required maintaining open communication between all stakeholders and fostering teamwork at all stages.

One aspect that proved to be invaluable, was our prototyping efforts in VR. This allowed us to walkthrough the user experience before construction on the final fountain had even started, giving everyone a sense of the visitor experience, and effectively testing different designs.

Digital Concept

Our aim was to transform donation, honouring the bank’s legacy of charity and contribution to innovation by combining those efforts into an interactive experience that would delight visitors both at the fountain and online. The key was to create a holistic experience that translated with ease between the digital and real world.

Connecting seamlessly between fountain & visitors’ mobile devices, the location-based experience allowed for many visitors to engage with the fountain simultaneously. This was in keeping with the charitable and community-building messaging of the campaign, and showcased the many wishes made by those visitors in three featured cities across Canada and the United States of America.

At-Home Experience

While the physical fountain travelled between Montréal, Toronto, and Chicago, the campaign’s reach was significantly expanded through the delivery of an online experience.

Our studio was excited to work in emerging platforms, and in 2013, the 3D Web was at the frontier of possibility. The team was eager to innovate and to translate the flip-dots of the fountain into three dimensional columns.

The WebGL site connected to visitors’ mobile devices using the same mobile application employed on-site. Once a wish had been made, the visitor would flip the coin off their phone screen and it would appear on their desktop or laptop browser, completing the animation.

Project Outcomes

  • The exhibit travelled over 50,000 KM between installations in Montréal, Toronto, and Chicago, garnering 9M in-person impressions, and 250,000 unique digital interactions that averaged ~2 minutes, tripling expectations (based on standard benchmarks).
  • The project won several awards, including ADCC awards for Digital Installations and Innovative Use of Technology. The BMO Fountain was also shortlisted for a Cannes Lions award in the Digital Installations & Events category.