Izzy Kertland joined Unit9 in 2018, after working as a senior producer at interaction design studio Kin. As executive producer at Unit9’s experiential team, the Glasgow School of Art graduate has worked on interactive projects for brands, museums and tech companies, from Google to Asics, Microsoft and London’s Imperial War Museum.

Like many creatives working in events and production, Kertland has spent the past few months on furlough – an experience that has given her a rare chance to pause and reflect. Here, she discusses what she’s been thinking about during lockdown, how production companies can respond to restrictions on events and interactive experiences, and what changes she’d like to see in the production and ad world post-Covid 19.

Above and lead image (shown top): an interactive mural powered by touch and technology, created by Unit9 and 180 Kingsday to promote the Mini SE in Rotterdam  

What lockdowns have meant for Unit9 The experiential department at Unit9 mainly focuses on live events, launches and activations that usually take place in a physical space, with some level of physical interaction from people, which made projects difficult at the height of the pandemic. We were really busy at the beginning of the year, and then around March, that’s when lot of things started to get cancelled. Some of the team are freelancers, so they had to go and find other things to do – which was obviously really difficult in the events industry, as there’s not been much happening – and the permanent staff were put on furlough.