VTEX
CHALLENGE: Introduce the VTEX e-commerce platform to a North American audience.
SOLUTION: A bespoke animated journey through the VTEX system shows how the company’s e-commerce platform empowers product managers to solve common challenges and improve their work experience.
ROLE: Creative Director
Design & Development
My collaboration with VTEX spanned nearly two years, including a reset following the introduction of a new CMO who ushered in a refresh of the brand voice and identity. The evolution of the brand’s marketing strategy, message and aesthetic challenged my team to rethink how animation could support the brand and to explore a variety of new artistic styles for distinguishing the core VTEX product from competitors.
Round 1
My initial proposal was a high-octane adventure in which a product manger—VTEX’s main customer and target audience for the campaign—discovers VTEX, then wields the platform to become the hero of their company, untangling the complex underpinnings of ancient e-commerce technologies to usher in a streamlined era of logistical harmony. We designed two distinct styles to represent the feeling of a world before and after our character finds VTEX, beginning with sketches and then illustrating full style frames.
Before VTEX
The world before VTEX was designed to be an abstract dystopia, like exploring a nightmare built of the obstacles our character battles each day.
After VTEX
Upon discovering VTEX, a change would have rippled across the world our character inhabits, simplifying and brightening the visuals to create a more pleasing landscape featuring architecture built of packaging, floating digital windows, and a general upbeat sense of opportunity in motion.
Character Design
Incorporating the client’s feedback on style, the next step for my team was to explore the design of our main character. Now working toward a mostly duo-chrome, flat minimalist art style, I sought to infuse our character’s presence with our message of empowerment, using posture, wardrobe and color to establish a distinct change in their entire persona before and after their discovery of the VTEX platform.
Hiatus
As happens with some large brand projects, our animation got tabled for a while after the client hired a new CMO and began a review of their visual identity and voice. VEX later returned with a completely redesigned look in preparation to launch in the North American Market.
Round 2
Bringing together a more vibrant color palette, textures, early 80's pattern inspired wardrobe, mid-century office decor, and oddly shaped character silhouettes, the foundations of VTEX's new visual identity challenged us to design a world that spanned eras, yet felt entirely authentic and cohesive. For our first proposal, we designed a system that would combine two distinct styles made to work together within each frame:
Flattened, cut-out inspired characters, with lighting gradients and textures to add depth between layers
Outlined backgrounds to build out environments without stealing viewer attention as a depth-of-field alternative
Without any significant changes needed to the original script, we designed two entirely new style frames to show the evolution of our character's world after discovering VEX, taking viewers from the familiar tired setting of stark fluorescent illuminated halls replete with square ceiling blocks to a invitingly wide open contemporary collaboration featuring hot desks integrated with natural elements.
BEFORE
AFTER
Not Quite Right
Well, folks. We missed the mark on this one. It would have been a fun world to explore, but it strayed too far from the style the client was developing for their launch.
Following multiple iterations and deep discussions with the client in which we continued to refine, yet consistently fell short of the client's goals, a realization settled on me. The answer to our challenge had been there all along, written into the sub-text since the very start of the project the year before: we were making the wrong video.
The excitement of exploring a dynamic visualization of their brand had inspired the VTEX team to approve us up to this point, yet what they really needed-the brand challenge they sought to solve-was less grandoise, and more ground tactical: a next-level product walkthrough that would highlight the exclusive features of their software.
|had been designing a commercial launch campaign, when the solution the client was looking for was 10% advertising and 90% product walkthrough.
Round 3 | Final
With a newly revised goal, our direction was clear: remove the cinema and focus on interface. We took what the client loved about our most recent designs to revise characters and minimize environments to the bare minimum. We ditched any concept of depth, sculpted bold cut-out character silhouettes, and we followed the client's guidance to arrive at a "chic" look with occasional rough spots around the edges while designing a creative take of the VEX interface that would accurately represent the product experience while cohesively fitting with the brand's marketing campaigns.
Character Development
We went back to the drawing board, starting with sketches and building out a variety of characters that could appear at home in both a real world setting and yet cohesively traverse the digital world of our interface.
Style Frames
Once we landed on a design for the main character that would lead the video, and with an approved design for our representation of the product interface, we proceeded to build out the style around these elements, exploring an office space, and an abstract digital environment in which our character could exist in the same space as the interface and many of its elements.
We mixed in real-world photography with illustrated elements and layered in rough textures to tie the digital space to the real world and give the abstract product a more grounded and authentic quality.
To top it off, we added a cursor to function as a companion for our character and secondary audience surrogate to allow us the flexibility to shift from user experience to technical walkthrough.
Animation
At long last, after more than a year of collaboration, with an approved style in-hand, it was time to move.
Toss in a jazzy score, a deeply commanding voiceover and an assortment of digital experience sound effects, and our final spot welcomed viewers on an entirely unique behind the scenes journey showing how an e-commerce operation powered by VTEX could transform their business.