British Arrowsx Outernet

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For British Arrows’ 50th anniversary, the ambition was to open the archive up to the public for the first time.

Ink and Giants helped create a three minute immersive exhibition at Outernet NOW, bringing together 70 iconic British ads across five decades and inviting audiences to vote for their favourite in the new Public Choice category.

Five Decades,
One Living Archive

Outernet is a busy public space, so the work had to make sense quickly. People might arrive at the beginning, middle or end, stay for thirty seconds or watch the full sequence.

The experience was designed so the archive could be understood at a glance, while still rewarding those who stayed longer and followed the journey online. It needed to celebrate the history of the Arrows, but also give people a clear reason to take part.

Watch Our Work

Built in Glass,
Light and Motion

The creative direction began with three visual routes for how British Arrows’ 50th could live inside Outernet. One looked at legacy through light and reflection. One used ribbons as a symbol of collective brilliance. One imagined the archive as glowing panels suspended in motion.

The final direction gave the archive a clear visual structure: luminous glass panels, soft reflections and a controlled upward movement toward the British Arrows mark. It gave the installation its own visual identity, allowing different eras, formats and styles to sit together without losing what made each ad memorable.

With 70 ads spanning different decades, styles and formats, the challenge was making everything feel part of one world rather than a scrapbook of brilliant moments. Each ad became a luminous vessel within the space, carrying the archive through light, texture and movement.

To make sure the experience worked across all five wraparound screens, the Outernet NOW space was rebuilt digitally. This allowed scale, flow, rhythm and readability to be tested before the work went live. It was part creative direction, part spatial planning and part careful choreography.

The Public
Stepped In

The installation turned a 50th anniversary tribute into an active public vote. Audiences encountered the work in the space, then continued into the online archive to watch the ads in full and choose their favourite.

The public vote drew over a thousand votes and crowned Cadbury’s Gorilla the nation’s favourite British ad of the past fifty years, giving the campaign a story beyond the space itself.

“For our 50th anniversary, we wanted to do something we’d never done before: open the doors and put fifty years of great British advertising in front of the public. For that we needed people who could work at the scale of Outernet, and in Ink & Giants we found them. We were genuinely open-minded about what the work could be, and what they brought back was hard to choose between; the concepts were all brilliant. They found a way to honour fifty years of heritage while making it feel alive and celebratory in that space. Seeing it come together at that scale, with the public voting for their favourites, was more than we’d pictured. The response has been wonderful.”

– Lisa Lavender, Managing Director, British Arrows