Karndean | ultimate 5 Benefits of 360 Tours for Flooring
Building Immersive Digital Experiences: Our 360° Interactive Tour for Karndean
By James
At DoDA, we’re passionate about creating digital experiences that not only look stunning but also serve a real purpose. Today, I’m excited to share one of our latest projects—a fully immersive 360° interactive tour we built for Karndean Flooring, the UK’s market leader in luxury vinyl flooring.
Karndean has a rich product range that spans stylish, durable flooring solutions for residential, commercial, and recreational spaces. Working with them on this project was a genuine pleasure, and it’s a great example of how our in-house teams—from 3D artists to UX designers—collaborate to deliver a seamless digital experience from concept to launch.
1. The Vision: Bringing Flooring to Life
This project began, like most great ones, with a conversation. Karndean wanted a way to help customers visualize how their products would look in real-world settings—beyond traditional product images or spec sheets. They needed something immersive, something engaging. The answer? A 360° virtual tours that would allow users to explore a wide range of Karndean products in beautifully rendered digital environments.
One of our brilliant artists, George, set the tone with a stunning concept image. This visual became the foundation for everything that followed. From there, we collaborated closely with Karndean to develop a clear brief—defining which product ranges to feature, what kinds of spaces to show them in, and how to tie everything together visually and functionally.
2. From Wireframes to Reality
With the brief in hand, we began the design process. First came spatial planning. Using Revit, our team developed black-and-white wireframes of the environments, laying out how different spaces—like home interiors, gyms, offices, and bars—would flow and function.
This phase was all about structure: ensuring each space was practical, realistic, and complemented the specific flooring featured in it. Once the wireframes were approved, we moved into detailed 3D modeling. We added lighting, textures, materials, and, of course, Karndean’s beautiful flooring designs.
The result? Marketing-level CGI renders that not only formed the backbone of the 360 experience but also gave Karndean versatile visual assets for their broader campaigns.
Introducing the Interactive Tour
Once the environments were built and rendered, we shifted focus to the interactive component. The goal was to give users a smooth, engaging experience—something as intuitive as Google Street View but deeply branded for KARNDEAN.
The tour begins with a strong branded splash screen. From there, users are transported into a virtual lobby, where they can navigate through hotspots to various rooms and environments. Each hotspot leads to a fully explorable 360° space where users can click and drag to look around, much like navigating a real location.
Key Features:
- Informational Pop-Ups
Each room includes clickable points that reveal more about the flooring shown, including specs, use cases, and direct links to the Karndean website for further browsing.
- Integrated Navigation Panel
A sleek panel along the bottom of the tour allows users to access case studies, blog content, and sustainability information relevant to the space they’re viewing.
- Themed Zones
To make navigation even easier, we grouped spaces into three main categories: Work, Live, and Play. Each category offers subspaces—offices, gyms, bars, homes—helping users quickly find the environments most relevant to them.
3. Seamless Brand Integration
A key goal for us was to ensure the interactive tour didn’t feel like a standalone experience—it had to feel like an extension of Karndean’s website. Our graphic design team worked within Karndean’s brand guidelines to develop a custom UI that mirrors their online aesthetic and functionality.
Every design choice, from the color scheme to the iconography, was made with brand cohesion in mind. So whether a user lands on the website or the 360 tour, the transition feels natural and seamless.
3. Seamless Brand Integration
A key goal for us was to ensure the interactive tour didn’t feel like a standalone experience—it had to feel like an extension of Karndean’s website. Our graphic design team worked within Karndean’s brand guidelines to develop a custom UI that mirrors their online aesthetic and functionality.
Every design choice, from the color scheme to the iconography, was made with brand cohesion in mind. So whether a user lands on the website or the 360 tour, the transition feels natural and seamless.
4. The Full Digital Package
This wasn’t just about making something that looked cool. It was about building a complete digital package. From early concept art and spatial design to 3D modeling, branding, user interface design, and final deployment, our team handled every aspect in-house. And we loved every second of it.
The end result is an interactive experience that’s as visually compelling as it is practical—something Karndean can use in sales, marketing, and customer education alike.
5. Looking Ahead
We’re already exploring new ways to expand this offering—more interactivity, more personalisation, maybe even integrating configurators or AR in the future. These are the kinds of projects that excite us because they push boundaries and offer real value to our clients.
If you’re interested in exploring how an interactive 360° experience could work for your brand, feel free to reach out. Or subscribe below to get updates on new projects, tutorials, and design insights.
