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Fox Micron campaign

Part 1 - Illustrations

Title: Micron N series

Client: Fox International

Time Taken: 10 weeks

What: Multimedia Campaign

Project Team size: 3

URLS: www.foxint.com/nseries

Fox International approached us to create a brand identity to promote their new range of products: the Micron N series. After creating the identity the follow up brief was to produce a campaign of multimedia material. This included poster, catalogue and technical artwork, followed by a series of web clips and finally a top class showreel.

Approaching a brief like this is exciting as there is so much artwork to create across so many different formats; you are faced with many challenges, both artistic and technical.

Posters

The first problem we are faced with is that the products are still in prototype stage, they don’t even exist yet. So all colours, textures assets could be changed at any point. Therefore the workflow has to be adaptive and communication with the product designer was frequent. Secondly, the posters were going to be huge, 4 x 2 meters and 1 x 2 meters. Considering A2 is about the largest we have ever produced in the past, this was a big leap.

 The first step was to create a series of sketches and basic compositions tests. These are done very quickly and most ideas are thrown out. Once the best idea is selected, simple mock-ups were created. It was a great help that at this early stage we had access to the 3d CAD data. This was a huge asset as it meant that we didn’t have to redraw the products. The only problem was that before going too far, this data had to be cleaned with materials added.

(Above image: Poster printed 2 meters talll)
   
After the composition tests we then took the CAD data and added this to our scene, where we then add lights and cameras.
 
In this particular case the objects needed to be lit up like the photograph was taken in a studio. Therefore to recreate this look many low level lights are added to create a soft illumation. To stop the image from becoming flat, intense lights are placed behind the image to give a better feeling of 3d.
 
As in most cases with 3D the images are rendered out in layers. This both speeds up the time it takes to render and also gives the artist complete control over the image. Once all these layers are put together it not only makes the image nicer too look at, it also adds a level of realism to it.
 
This is the final image of the landscape poster. The image is crisp, showing the products in the best possible way. From the image becoming too band coloured swirls where introduced into the background. The swirls where liked so much by the client they were then used throughout the whole campaign. You can finally see a selection of images from one of the Fox shows (below). This poster being a printed a massive 4 meters in length!
 
 

Catalogue

The second part of the project was then to create a series of catalogue artwork. The scale now being a standard A4 page, things where a little easier on the computers! The biggest difference between posters and catalogue art work is that the images have to work with the written copy. Information has to be clear.

 

The image below shows a very quick mock-up of the page layout. It’s key to consider layout right from the very start when producing artwork.
 
 
On the left is one of the technical illustrations to show the internals of the products. The layering system again was used so we could see all vital components.
 
Each and every piece of artwork we produce goes through a process called colour correcting. This is the vital last stage of a produced image. Colours a corrected via the brightness/contrast and hue/saturation. In the case here more colours where added as the products emphasis is the wildly bright colours it produces.
 
And finally a sample of the catalogue with the artwork!