Scientists worldwide purchase their lab equipment from Merck. Test tubes, electronic devices, and other supplies for chemical analysis – whatever one needs in a lab can be supplied by the German chemical corporation. But there so many products for so many industries (beverage, chemical, food, and pharmaceuticals, for example) that you easily can loose track. Q was asked to find a solution to present the Merck product range with its 27 application areas in a comprehensible way and practical way.

Q created a unique virtual lab environment: With the free web tool, Virtual Lab, all relevant chemicals, devices, and disposables can be displayed with one mouse click. A selection of categories, lab types, and methods leads to specific configuration scenarios that are enriched with videos, PDF downloads of brochures, and 360° visualizations. Because of its broad acceptance, the tool – which was meant to be an internal application only to train new staff members and sales people – was made publicly available (to the academic-research community, for example).

Characterized by fresh colors, the visual appearance conforms to Merck’s new corporate-design system. The whole lab experience was built in 3D. We even remodeled the Merck devices to guarentee a comprehensive and consistent image. The project was created in close collaboration with our friends at Piccobello, in Trier.