XR Nation Citizen's Spotlight: flyAR

Citizen's Spotlight is a weekly series sharing an XR Nation citizen's story.

HELSINKI, FINLAND (October 7, 2020) – flyAR Augmented Reality Studio Oy is a Helsinki-area-based creative digital agency focusing on custom Augmented Reality solutions and content creation.

flyAR was founded as a joint venture in 2017 by Frans Tihveräinen and Eero Salminen, two friends who met back in 2009 while studying digital media engineering. Before owning and operating a shared business, the creative engineer duo worked together on AR-projects through Frans’ previous company and also took part in an Industry Hack-facilitated innovation challenge entitled ​Hack the Pack​.

Partaking in this innovation challenge was a crucial stepping stone in the birth of flyAR Augmented Reality Studio Oy because ​Team flyAR​ won the whole thing and landed quite a big project for Stora Enso, the renewable materials company. The project was an interactive and story-like augmentation attached to a small juice box package. Check out the video below.

(Although years have passed, flyAR has not yet seen any packaging augmentations that are as intricate and detailed as this one was. Please let Frans know if you find cooler AR packages!)

From the start, the founding duo was joined by talented 3D artist Sebastian Aho, who created most of the 3D assets for the Stora Enso package and other flyAR projects. At the moment Sebbe is working at Aalto University but regularly does freelance work for flyAR.

After the Stora Enso packaging project, flyAR has worked with clients like cities (Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa), various museums, food companies like Gold&Green and Santun Seitan, construction companies, board game companies, and some quite cool artistic projects as well. One project that sparked lots of interest in the potential of Augmented Reality was an experimental PoC created together with Immersal for Caverion. See the video below:

flyAR specializes in designing and creating AR experiences with the best available tools. Although creating AR-experiences is the primary focus, flyAR will build or harness any new technology required to bring the vision to life. Currently, flyAR’s primary toolset includes ZapWorks, Unity, Immersal, and Blender, but they keep their eyes open for new technologies and tools to add to their toolbox.

Technology in itself is nothing; it's always content that makes it count.

At the moment, flyAR is (from left to right) Nico, a full-time 3D artist since December 2019, Eero, Frans, and Sebastian (on-demand).

The team has just moved to a cool new office in Tikkurila.

During this autumn flyAR will be starting an ambitious AVEK-funded (Digidemo) AR project that will utilize Immersal’s mapping of central Helsinki. Follow flyAR’s social media channels (Facebook​ / ​Instagram​ / ​LinkedIn) and visit our website to hear more about it once the time comes!