What we mean by creative technology

Creative technology is one of those terms that can mean almost anything. Ask three studios and you'll get three different answers.

For us, it means this: the discipline of building digital experiences where the code itself is part of the creative work.

The craft.

At Merlin, creative technology is the thread that runs through everything we do. From a WebAR campaign for Dior to an immersive 3D e-commerce page for Inter x Nike. The technology and the idea are one thing.

The gap between concept and reality

Here's a scenario that plays out constantly in the industry.

A creative agency develops a beautiful, ambitious concept. The moodboard is stunning. The client is excited. Then it hits the dev team and somewhere between briefing and delivery, the magic evaporates.

Closing that gap is exactly what we're here for.

Most of the time it's a failure of creative-technical translation. The people doing the conceiving and the people doing the building are too far apart. They speak different languages. They have different values.

At Merlin, we speak both. We've spent years embedded in creative teams at agencies and brands like Nike, Kim Kardashian's SKKY, TBWA, DEPT®, and Publicis. Shipping work that exceeded what anyone thought was technically possible.

We've built WebAR experiences that ran on 6-year-old smartphones without dropping a frame. We've built virtual 3D cities. We've shipped AI-powered UGC campaigns to millions of users. The brief for all of these started with: "we don't know if this is possible."

Where creative technologists live

The creative technologist sits at the intersection of design, engineering, and imagination.

In practice this means:

• Reading a concept deck and immediately knowing which parts are technically risky and which parts need rethinking
• Understanding that a 200ms delay in an animation is a broken promise to the user
• Knowing that WebGL, CSS, SVG, and HTML all have opinions and you need to know when to use which
• Caring about frame rates the way a cinematographer cares about lighting

Motion as a pillar

We describe ourselves as designed-for-motion, built to move. That's intentional.

Motion is how digital experiences communicate personality, hierarchy, and delight. A transition is information. It tells the user where they came from, where they're going, and how much to trust the interface.

Good motion just feels right.

We're in the design conversation early, thinking about how things move before we think about how things look. The Erthos® experience is a good example: a motion and video-filled world that takes you through a brand's mission. The flow is the brand.

We've also written about how motion and timing interact in our Digital Out of Home piece, where the constraints are physical and the stakes are high.

Performance is part of the craft

A beautiful concept running at 18fps on an average Android device is an embarrassment. Performance is a design constraint we build with from day one.

In practical terms, this means:

• Tiered experience systems that detect device capabilities and scale accordingly
• Aggressive texture compression via CDN, with images and 3D models automatically converted and resized at delivery
• Memory management for complex scenes, tracking VRAM usage and knowing iOS Safari's 50MB limit intimately
• Code splitting and lazy loading as standard practice
• Monitoring systems that detect lag in real-time and downgrade gracefully
• Designing for speed

Working with agencies

Some of our projects come through creative agencies. We're brought in as the technical partner that can execute ideas at the level the creative team imagined them.

The agency brings deep client relationships, brand strategy, and creative vision. We bring the technical craft to make that vision real.

In practice, this means we:

• Join the project at the concept phase
• Advise on what's technically feasible and what needs rethinking
• Work within the agency's process and timelines (we have never missed a deadline)
• Build the thing, ship the thing, and document it so it can be maintained

Working with Merlin feels like an extension of your team. Low friction, high craft.

What a creative technology project looks like

Every project is different, but the shape tends to be similar.

It usually starts with a concept deck and a question: "is this possible?" We figure out the answer quickly, within a sprint, ideally. Then we move into production, which is where we live.

A typical creative technology build at Merlin involves:

• A design-first kickoff where motion, interaction, and structure are discussed together
• Custom animation and transition work built from scratch
• A bespoke WebGL or Three.js scene if the project calls for 3D
• Integration with a headless CMS if content needs to be managed
• Performance testing on a range of real devices
• A final delivery with documentation