Territory Studio nails the UI interfaces for Marvel's Avengers: Age of Ultron

At last month’s digital-themed Nicer Tuesdays we heard from David Sheldon Hicks and Peter Eszenyi of London-based Territory Studio, which specialises in creating UI interfaces for Hollywood blockbusters. This year they have worked on two massive movies in the shape of Alex Garland’s Ex Machina and the much-anticipated new Marvel offering Avengers: Age of Ultron.

The guys’ talk touched on the difficulties of designing for films set in the near future – seeing as the interfaces they created had to be rooted in reality– and they also spoke about the difficulty of producing something that may be seen on screen for only a few seconds. It’s a thankless task because get it right and nobody should really notice, but get it wrong and the full furious force of online message boards will rain down upon you.

A franchise like the Avengers is particularly demanding. Firstly, because its fans buy into the films obsessively and are quick to rail against any perceived let-down. And secondly this movie revolves around a high-tech defence programme, so the UI is pretty central to the plot.

Credit then to the Territory team who seem to have pulled off this interface in style: not only does it look great, but it looks authentic too.