From Alien to Familiar:
Engineering Trust with Tilda Swinton
2025
OVERVIEW
OVERVIEW
This project transcends traditional branding, serving as a critical exploration into human-technology interaction. The core challenge was launching Haus Seoul - a Brutalist-style building embodying Gentle Monster.
Research Question
How can technologically unfamiliar systems, represented architecturally and symbolically,
be rendered emotionally trustworthy and approachable?
Conceptual Core
The narrative revolved around Tilda Swinton as a human anchor-associating authenticity, ambiguity, and transcendence. By embedding her in a digitally simulated, hyperreal environment, the campaign positioned her as a liminal bridge between the analog past and speculative digital future.
Constraints
Make weirdness desirable without domesticating it: translate architectural strangeness into emotional credibility—so the Haus, the campaign, and the eyewear feel approachable, compelling, and worth engaging with.
Strategy (Design Levers)
Human Anchor
Credibility entry point
Human Achor
Credibility entry point
Legible Ambiguity
Spark curiosity without discomfort
Spark curiosity without discomfort
Legible Ambiguity
Progressive Disclosure
Trust and Desire built over time
Trust and Desire built over time
Progressive Disclosure
Signals Tracked
-
Early confusion points (where trust drops) → Inform Human Anchoring
-
Audience reaction patterns (Trust vs Uncanny vs Curiosity) → Inform Controlled Stylization
-
Retention at key beats (first 10 seconds + payoff moments) → Inform Affective Pacing
Anchor Set (Inputs)
Tilda Swinton:
Our human anchor,
our ultimate credibility tool
Haus Seoul:
The physical anchor,
real world object
Cognitive Hook:
Designing ambiguity to kickstart curiosity
The Elicitation Target:
engineered to lead user
to this product
Mapping
Tilda Swinton → Human Anchor → lowers threat / increases credibility
Haus Seoul → Legible Ambiguity → curiosity without confusion
Hook (3D meta human mosh pit ) → Affective Pacing → attention held past 10s
Product → Resolution Target → desire lands on eyewear
What changed after early feedback
• Initial building reveal felt emotionally distant → increased human anchoring before the first reveal.
• Hyperreal frames risked discomfort → shifted to controlled stylization to keep the unreal legible.
Mechanisms
Mechanism 1 - Human Anchor
Humanizing the Alien with
Cultural Authenticity
1. Human Achor
Mechanism 2 - Legible Ambiguity
The Power of Cognitive Ambiguity
2. Legible Ambiguity
Mechanism 3 - Affective Pacing
Multi-Sensory Modality for
Affective Pacing
3. Affective Pacing
Chose Brutalism for symbolic detachment; integrated Tilda and Mosh Pit codes to lower defenses and maximize credibility. Beyond visuals, embedded subcultures for raw honesty.
Induced "I recognize this, yet don't fully understand it" effect as a psychological hook, triggering attention, arousal and retention all desirable in behavioral science.
Wove narratives with emotionally pulsing soundscapes and neuroaesthetics principles to evoke anticipation, disorientation, and awe - dynamically pacing to scaffold trust.
Emotional Timeframe
Key Takeaway (Outcome)
Outcome: 100M+ views in under one week, with strong audience engagement.
What it proved: Weirdness becomes desirable when trust is designed as a sequence.
Anchor → Ambiguity → Pacing → Payoff.
What’s next: I want to quantify these emotional checkpoints (retention, sentiment, drop-off) and test how the framework transfers to wearables / AI / physical AI interfaces.
