Preston is a fitness fanatic, UXUI junkie, product design ninja and serial entrepreneur selling his first company at the age of 16. Preston has provided creative direction and product management to some of the largest brands in the world including Hewlett Packard, Bodybuilding.com, Hurley International and SAP, to name a few. Along the way his passion for amazing products and solving difficult design problems has earned him numerous awards for projects ranging from traditional print campaigns and packaging design, to chart-topping mobile applications with complex information architectures. As Creative Director of Bodybuilding.com, Preston led teams responsible for a complete cross-channel brand refresh that modernized the company’s brand and set a tone for future digital properties. As Director of Product, he led the redesign of one of the world’s largest websites (32mm unique visitors per month), navigating the complexities and collaborating with a 60+ member development and design team; Preston also led the strategy and development of BodySpace, the world’s largest online fitness community with over 3mm members and the creation of platforms that more than tripled the speed at which the company could create and ship digital properties. Preston still considers himself lucky to have been a part of the massive growth the company experienced from under $90mm to over $500mm in his seven year tenure.
Michael is a brand director, strategic planner, award-winning writer and editor with more than a decade of executive experience transforming several magazines and websites with a proven track record of results, professionalism and leadership. Michael is an American author and editor and has written or co-written over a dozen books. De Medeiros enjoyed a successful tenure as editor-in-chief of Maximum Fitness magazine and Men’s Fitness magazine, helping grow the company to a multi-million dollar business.
Preston Lewis (Black Box Co-Founder & Chief Creative Officer) and Michael De Medeiros (Black Box Chief Content Officer) sit down with Fast Company to talk the future of VR and fitness.
Black Box’s patent-pending resistance system can scale weights up and down elastically. It uses an AI algorithm to track every repetition and progressively increase the intensity. Each equipment system, accompanied by the HTC Vive wireless headset, comes with handles that translate to something in virtual reality, like shooting a gun. “We’re creating a new category of sports,” says Lewis.
As technology evolves, the world of VR and fitness will grow exponentially,” De Medeiros believes, adding we’re roughly two years away from VR fitness being a 360-degree, full-body experience.
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