Celebrating collaboration
The Opportunity
As a mobile-first team, the majority of our work is built for a vertical format, but when we showcase work it’s typically on a horizontal screen in a meeting room or on stage. Just placing a vertical element in a horizontal leaves unused real-estate and is generally a bad user experience, so the horizontal screen can be an opportunity to experience the work in a new way.
The Approach
We had to create a new reel of our work every quarter, and that allowed us to not only try new things with each execution, but also for a different person to own the production and showcase their point of view. It became a project people looked forward to on both ends. The team got excited about leading the work, and our partners looked forward to how the next quarter was handled.
The Learning
We create new ways to adapt vertical content across different formats and we found that focusing more on credit delivered more value for everyone. We formalized our process to make credit essential in our builds, calling out not only the brands and vendors we partnered with to build the work, but the designer who led the project. That led to more role growth and skill development. This method is what the team still uses today.
The Work
In this approach, we used collage, kaleidoscope, and intentional stretching to fill the space.
This direction was a hand drawn animation style. It worked well globally, but was difficult to scale.
This stye focused on showing how sketches and storyboards turn into final work.
Here we used type as a transition element and layering the vertical assets to establish space.
Case Study
volume 2 | Hand drawn with Laundry
The designer who led the project had a background in animation, but never had the chance to use that skill in their day to day.
Color Direction
The direction for our first reel was darker and intentionally moody, so we wanted the next collaboration to be bright and cheerful.
They reached out to a vendor they had always wanted to work with who also had a background in animation and the partnership was set.
Creating Our Lead Character
We went through a number of options, and ultimately decided an animal would work better globally than a human. These were the first passes at what became our cat.
Making it Global
We wanted the work to reflect the location where it was created. We tried a number of subtle directions, but ultimately decided that having the cat just walk through the city itself was the best solution. The team enjoyed finding ways to drop in nods to the city and regional specific details. There are 10 different cities in the final reel.
Bonus Content/Gag Reel
We love when movies add a gag reel to the end of a film. It seems to say “look how much fun we had making this for you.” We decided to do the same. If you stick around to the end, we added some behind the scenes content so you can see how it’s made. Fun fact, the dancer is one of the animators.
