BACKGROUND

At the very beginning, Thinkingbox was just Sahba, a freelance graphic designer working out of his parents’ basement. He came up with the name for his company for a design school project, about fifteen minutes before the class when it was due, he says. But he wasn’t satisfied that was the right way to make his mark, so in 2009 he rented an office and started bringing on local talent to start building an agency.

Thinkingbox — the Vancouver production house/creative agency created by Amir Sahba — works on a lot of different digital brand experiences and live activations. But where it’s earned a name for itself is combining the two.

Take some of the virtual reality activations it’s done for Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. Last year for the release of Interstellar, it built a device that simulated the feeling of zero gravity, using immersive sound, a head-tracking camera, a moving chair and an Oculus Rift headset. A reporter from Gizmodo wrote “you actually feel like you’re bouncing through a spaceship.”

Today, Thinkingbox’s office is a little bigger — around 10,000 square feet. Between its headquarters in Vancouver and its satellite offices in Toronto and L.A., the agency is home to 80 staff, split between creative, production and sales.