Yesterday while checking my Facebook I saw this awesome time-lapse video that Rik Oostenbroek posted capturing a behind the scenes of peek of his project for Nike Total Football. The end result is quite beautiful, as we always expect from Rik. Seeing how he creates these amazing illustrations is not only amazing but really inspiring. I learned a couple of new tricks just by checking it, you should do the same.

Nike asked me to stay true to my own personal style and experiment with it and go crazy. The concept was based on the dynamics and fluent movement of the total football from the Dutch total football, as introduced at the World-Cup 1974.

For more information and to check out Rik's portfolio visit http://rikoostenbroek.com/

RIK OOSTENBROEK // NIKE // LAPSE from Rik Oostenbroek on Vimeo.

A couple months back, we featured this very inspiring collaborative case study about the Nike LunarEpic Flyknit shoe campaign. Today we are featuring a comeback on this project with Tendril and Blacklist and their supreme work with the team at Nike.

We are welcomed into the next level that the team brought to the table and make sure to watch the process video as well. We just can’t imagine how much freedom they had from such a big brand and how technical challenges they must have encountered. While watching the video, I just can’t help to notice how incredible is the sound. They have built a procedural noise-based curve animation tool that replicates and expand on Cinema 4D’s MoSpline.

In this second phase of Nike's LunarEpic launch campaign, the shoe has arrived on Earth bringing with it otherworldly powers. Roads curve and stretch seemingly into infinity. Impossible runs suddenly feel effortless. Gravity is nonexistent.

Watch the Process

This was our sixth project with the amazing team at Nike. Working with them and Blacklist, it was our task to take Nike's creative strategy, and then conceive and develop a narrative and visual structure for the brand film around the tagline 'run forever'. The manifestation was a 45s film and sound design (created by CypherAudio), key print and digital 'hero' visuals, social media clips and a large-scale track and field dome installation. The process with Nike is always incredibly collaborative and exciting. From there, the macro surface knitting effects were also prototyped and build in Houdini over the course of a couple weeks and then rendered in Arnold. The bending and warping landscape sections also took quite a bit of RnD to get right. In the end, we used a blend of multiple World Machine displacements and Xgen scattering in Maya. The laser-cutting sequence also posed its own set of puzzles, which we solved in Cinema4D using an arcane stack of deformers and morphs.

Credits

• Client: Nike
• Global Brand Communication Studio EP: Noah Stanik
• Global Brand Communication Studio Producer: Meagen Moore
• Global Brand Design, Running Art Director: David Brady
• Global Brand Design, Running Studio Manager: Denise Wild
• Production Company: Blacklist
• EP: Andrew Linsk
• Producer: Karen Lawler
• Production Studio: Tendril
• Co-Directors: Chris Bahry of Tendril, Tom Crate of Frame
• Executive Producer: Kate Bate
• Producer: John Szebegyinszki
• Storyboards: Greg Boychuk
• Editor: Tom Crate
• Pitch Concepts: Chris Bahry, Evaldas Cesnavicius, Wojtek Szklarski
• 3D Artists: Alasgar Hasanov, Alexandre Veaux, Florent Arnould, Christoffer Bjerre, Marcelo Souza, Will Sharkey
• FX: Alasgar Hasanov, Marcin Porebski
• Lighting and Render: Alexandre Veaux, Marcelo Souza, Christoffer Bjerre, Lorne Kwechansky
• Additional 3D Artists: Christian Hecht, Ben Pilgrim
• Compositing: Chris Bahry, Alexandre Veaux, Lorne Kwechansky
• 2D Animation: Leo Mateus, Marissa Godwin
• Music and Sound Design: John Black of CypherAudio

More information: http://tendril.ca.

Over the last month, we have featured the lettering work from Joe Sutton and today he is back with a case study. I shall add that he is sharing a full complete A to Z case study from the start and finish. Thank you Joe for taking the time to give us a demonstration of his experience and also sharing his process for everyone. Let me stop talking and give him the mic and hope you will enjoy his breakdown.

This is a client project of mine broken down from start to finish, I share all the details that was discussed with the client and let you know about design decisons and process. I've always wanted to offer a sneak peak inside my process as I’ve seen it done before in other disciplines and found it highly valuable. I want to put something together that wold have helped me when I first started.

In his Words

I was contacted to create a Logotype for Trampa. Trampa is an Urban Cycling Clothing Brand in its infancy. Their products have a Swedish design influence and a minimal and clean look that is functional, stylish and not out of place in a casual setting. Their target market is 16-30 year old male and females. I put together a document for the client to start with that broke down the the brand, goals, usage, keywords and competition. We put our focus on these as we found them to be the most important factors to focus on.

After this I asked if everything align with their thughts and what kewords represented Trampa best. They wanted to try and represent Urban, Cycling, Swedish, Movement,Ffreedom, Exploration, Clean. Thet also also provided me with a few logos that he liked, they were very varied in style and so I knew that identifying which direction early on would be important.

Sketching

When I go into sketching I just write the word out in a few go-to style, all caps, all lowercase, joined, unjoined and cursive script with a mix of character variations etc. Through this you can quickly understand where the issues might be between letters and where there are opportunities to create some unique ligatures. I’ll list the points that I discovered below:

The ‘r’-‘a’ gives an opportunity for a ligature.
• The two a’s could be interesting to experiment making the feature point
• The ‘p’-‘a’ join could be an issue
• We could join the ’t’-‘r’
• The capital ‘R’ or ‘P’ could be legs pedalling (Huge Gimmick)
• Type of ‘a’ and ‘r’ were open for experimentation.
• Capital or Lowercase T

Sorry if those sketches have made your eyes hurt, but it's all part of the process. After Identifying these I can target each one and try and make something interesting. I had a feeling the best way to go would be with a very simple san serif type with a slant, I felt like it’d be the most simple and reflective of the clothing and brand. Howver, I still sketched lots of other styles incase I found something better. Once I had exhausted all my options I selected 9 sketches, there’s no specific number I choose.

Usually below 10 as too many options can confuse the client and with this I refined them to an acceptable standard, still very far from perfect. The reason I choose at the early stage is usually they are so rough I'm the only one who knows where they could potentially end up like. So by choosing the best based off my judgement, with the project goals etc in mind, I offer the client more accurate optinons. You need to realise they aren't lettering deigners and that you probably understand your vision more than anyone else, so explain everything.

Presenting First Concepts

Now I had all my first sketches to a point where it’s clear enough for the client to understand. Also not too far that it’d be a waste of time, I was ready to display them all. So I scanned the versions in and then played around with them in photoshop until they are darkened but not distorted, I find this again aids the client in visualising the options clearer. At this stage you're sharing the work to really to gain a better understanding of what the client's preferences are so you can get on the same page in regards to stylistic direction. It’s also the first point to explain my thoughts on how each one relates to the goals for the project. After initial discussions with the client and with the research I had done, I was pretty confident I knew which ones would appeal to them the most. They did select the ones which I advised towards being the best, which is always a relieving moment. I know that some designers don’t offer the options to their client at this early stage. I think it’s so important to keep them engaged from the beginning so that you don’t go off on the wrong path and face the revisions at the end.

The client chose options 2, 3, 6, and 7 as his favourites and you can see the reasons below.

2: I love the underline, and the slight slant works well conveying movement. Maybe slightly harsh on the eye though.
3: I think it’s interesting and could be really cool or could be a bit odd. I think you could experiment a lot with it.
6: Is similar to 2 but feels more understated. Experimenting with the underline could work well here.
7: Surprised I liked this one but it feels like it has some flow to it. The capital T works well.

They agreed that 5 and 9 were not clear enough and I agreed with what he said so onto the next stage.

Refining Chosen Sketches

I take the scanned sketches, scale them up a bit and print them off so I can go into more detail and refine them. I use a light pad to trace versions rather than using tracing paper, that’s just my preference. Along with this I have some notes for each sketch with what to focus on initially improving. I work on this until I have them to a point where they are almost as refined as I can get them on paper. With this particular project it was more straight lines due the preference of the more simple, san serif style. So I think the computer is where the larger refinements could be seen properly. On projects where the style is more rounded and cursive then I like working on paper and creating nice smooth curves for longer as I feel like you can capture more personalitly on paper.

I offered each option with variations to show which ones could be experimented with further. The aim is exhaust all possible directions narrowing your way down to the perfect final logotype. The client decision was to take 1 and 3 further. I decided that making a quick digital rough would give a clearer idea of the final and help finalise it down to 1 version.

Digital Roughs

Starting in illustrator now I made both versions to a point where they were slightly refined but not nearly perfect. I also came up with a 3rd version which stemmed from option 3. This is now the point where you can really start to see what you’ve envisioned them to look like coming together.

We decided that 1 would be the best option to refine completely. It had been the stand out for me all the way. It offered lots of options to experiment with underlines, fullstops etc. I made some small changes to it from the sketch, but it maintains the same character and basic overall look and feel. I added a fullstop as I know the client mentioned something about it. I think that we had a strong base to work off from here and now it was just down to the final refinements.

Final Refinements

Now it’s all about the details. The main thing I discover when refining is when I tested what we had on a dark value, it looked too bold. This logo needs to be versatile and work in many usage cases, so I concurred with the client and displayed thinner version, we both felt that even making the line weight a little thinner helped with that issue and we kept pushing on.

When I come to create the final version firstly, I create a grid so that I can align all the horizontal and diagonal lines. After this I look at the letter spacing and the kern the final version. Finally I go over making use the letter endings are all the same. Not forgetting the most important part which Is checking the logotype optically and how it looks to the eye. Sometimes the grid might force things that don’t look natural enough so making sure it looks optically perfect and not just grid perfect is important.

The adjustments I had to make to this were the curves in the m, they were too thick and similarly with the p. I also did a lot of playing around with the a’s as they were becoming a distinguishable feature in the logo. As we planned to do, I also showed thick and thinner options with underlines and small changes which you can see below. We ended up going with a rounded full stop which you can see on the final version.

Final Logotype

Here is the final version, on a dark and light value. There isn’t a colour palette yet as the project is in its very early stages. I've tried to share all the details I could, and hope this has been useful to some of you. Don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any further questions.

More Information: http://joesutton.co and make sure to follow him on Dribbble.

MINUS-8 is a industrial design and product design project share by Brett Lovelady on his Behance profile. There are so many things to love about this project and the fact it's from 2 years ago is even more interesting for me. The watch brand was created by Astro Studios designed to express the things that make the West Coast so special: Free thought, pure form, and always living on the leading edge of America. The outcome is a truly beautiful watch with a mix of style and function well balanced out.

Another important thing for me is that as the fad for smartwatches are sort of passing or settling we see that the classic wristwatch has a place in the market, even if it's just for style. The progressive, layered construction makes MINUS-8 as future-focused in its aesthetic as it is in its ethos.

The MINUS-8’s brand is inspired by californias eight-hour distance from Greenwich Mean Time. We believe America’s West Coast culture gives us the freedom to be innovators and change-agents. The progressive, layered construction makes MINUS-8 as future-focused in its aesthetic as it is in its ethos.

Product Lineup

Since launching MINUS-8 in 2014, they’ve created 5 full lines of watches as well as a collection with another native San Francisco apparel brand, NICE Collective. With a new brutalist aesthetic, established Japanese movements, space age details, and best-in-class materials, MINUS-8 represents a new standard within the category. 

Product design process

About Brett Lovelady

Brett Lovelady is a designer, communicator and angst ridden creative capitalist. After receiving his BFA in Design at BYU, he escaped to Silicon Valley to design the future. After his successful run as Vice President of Design at Lunar and Frog respectively, he sought absolute power (aka responsibility) and unbridled creative license. This led him to the founding of Astro Studios in 1994, and it’s been a giant fun-filled waterslide of bringing innovative products to market, turning venturous sparks into fireballs, and becoming a global design voice. 

For more information check out http://www.astrostudios.com/

Let's kick-off the week with a case study by Evgeniya Righini-Brand about gradients. Not only that but they are only made in Adobe Illustrator. We are covering her experiment that she did for her Mastering Gradients in Illustrator class on Skillshare. It is such a lovely case study that we dearly love on Abduzeedo, please note that her experiments took from 30 minutes to an hour. It's all possible when you are willing; check it out!

This super cool and informative case study was designed by Evgeniya Righini-Brand who is a graphic designer based from Sleaford, UK. You should definitely give a follow on her Behance, it's filled with a variety of work from graphic design to digital photography.

For one month I was experimenting with a range of gradient-related techniques which I cover in my Skillshare class Mastering Gradients in Illustrator. The challenge for this project was to only use the gradient and colour tools covered in this class and create work purely in Adobe Illustrator. As I am really into geometry and reasonably minimalistic designs, most of what I've done with the gradients reflect it, and there's quite a bit of the organic and celestial themes here too.

Andrew Couldwell shared a great case study showing the behind the scenes of the design process for Adobe Portfolio which is Adobe's service for designers, photographers and enthusiasts to create beautiful portfolios. I had the chance to play around with it a bit and I quite like it. My only qualm was with the Behance integration, I wish I could have projects there without being on Behance. Perhaps it's possible however I have yet to discover. After this post I will definitely seek this out.

Product Design

The editor must enable the user to quickly and simply edit their portfolio. The UI is very minimal — it gets out of the way and allows you to focus on the design of your website. All changes you make happen live in the editor. We were going for simple, clean and beautiful. It empowers the user to: Easily edit anything they can see, manage and add content, responsively preview their website, and publish/update a live website.

Editor

The editor UI is very minimal, putting the website you are editing front and center. All edits happen live as you edit and you can preview your website responsively on tablet and mobile at any time, in the editor. Everything can be accessed via direct access by hovering over elements and being presented with edit icons and options to edit. Managing and adding content and site settings are all done via the toolbar to the left of the screen. And the draggable remote to the right accesses the main editable features of whatever page you are currently viewing.

Here a couple of images:

Specs

Customizing and layouts

Most layouts by default have aspect ratio cropping enabled for project covers, to unify the presentation and layout of projects in galleries. For me, one of the coolest features in the product is the ability to mass change the aspect ratio (crop) of all covers, so you can very quickly and dramatically change your layout.

For more information and to read the full case study check out the Behance post.

The Zeppe Deliveria della Pizza is the latest original restaurant from Grupo Mar, from Belo Horizonte – Brazil. In this post you will see the creative process of Zeppe's new identity.

This project was done by the design studio "Pós Imagem Design" out of Rio de Janeiro Brazil, for more about them visit posimagem.com.br and behance.net/posimagem.

Zeppe Deliveria della Pizza is an original and stylish new pizza place from Belo Horizonte, Brazil. We were comissioned to develop their branding and visual identity based on the Giuzeppe story above and the year of launch of the first Vespa model – 1946. Our challenge became to delve into the graphic references of the time, appropriating and rethinking them in an authentic way to create a truly original environment. Constructivist art and modernist movements like Bauhaus and De Stijl were our starting points. The work of designer Louise Fili was a true inspiration as well, and we also gathered lots of reference material on traditional Italian signage. The result is a somewhat unexpected mixture of the quirky script logo with the rigid geometric motif and our favorite part – lots of posters.

 

Research, Studies, Drafts

 

Our Four Contenders

We usually don't present the client with this many 'options', but we felt that the development process had been so rich that it was justified, in this case. Of course, we only did this because we believed any of the options would be a good choice.

Naturally, we had our own favorites – Rafael, the Creative Director, settled on the 4th, while I (Daniel) was obsessed with the letterforms and variations on the 3rd. Also, notice that the Vespa icon on the first iteration of the final logo was different.

 

The Final Logo

Once the logo is chosen and all the work is done, we can't even imagine how it all would have looked in any of the other choices. There was still a lot more to come, though. From the very beginning, we knew we wanted to bring some constructivism into the mix – something that would reference the time period of our story character, Giuzeppe, and give a strong voice to the identity.

We are happily sharing a tremendous case study of the new reinvented Nike LunarEpic Flyknit running shoe by/in global collaboration with Tendril and Blacklist and more. Together, they've worked on making the teaser, launch film, and global Nike in-store installations. Sit back and enjoy one of the best projects we've seen lately on Abduzeedo.

Rising from the surreal landscape of an incredible alien world, Nike's reinvented running shoe, the Lunar Epic Flyknit, was a product launch of galactic proportions. The visuals for the launch were meant to further elevate the innovative, weightless, futuristic technology of the revolutionary running shoe.

Reveal Video

In Tendril's Words

Together with Blacklist and a crew of otherworldly talents from around the world, we created the teaser, launch film, and global Nike in-store installations. We built an A-list team for the project that included one of our award-winning HIGH5ER studios, Frame, to co-direct. What was totally unique about the project for us was the global collaboration. Blacklist is in NY, Tendril in Toronto, Frame in Denmark, Nike in Portland, and there was a slew of freelance gurus dotted all over the world. In total we had Canada, US, Brazil, Germany, Slovenia, Denmark and the UK all on this project. This made it an explosion of deadly talents. We all worked together hooked up by a massive 2TB Dropbox account.

The HIGH5ERS experiment of extending the collaborative spirit beyond the walls of the studio to join forces on special projects allows everyone to learn and grow while making amazing work. It also fosters new creative friendships, allows for faraway travel, and pushes everyone to make the best work possible together.

Teaser Video

Video Stills

Process

One of the biggest challenges wasn't that production was a global initiative; the challenge was mostly in creating the environment where the action takes place. Armed with photo references from Nike of Pariah Canyon in the United States (a place of insanely gorgeous flowing layers of rocks) we created an entire planet in 3D. This was no small feat–we did it by researching, experimenting, going back to drawing board some more, and then by exporting data back and forth between World Machine and C4D.

Likewise, in the brand teaser film, the giant galaxy required a tonne of problem-solving. Its swirling tornado of particles took quite a bit of testing to get right. There was no way to generate it procedurally and still have the level of control we wanted. In the end, we came up with a complex recipe that combined a traditionally modelled base geometry with procedural noises and World Machine height maps that were fed through a layer shader and distorted with additional noises.

Besides the amazing team who we had the pleasure of collaborating with, shout-outs to Google Hangouts, Sheets, Slack, Dropbox, continental airline travel, coffee, and beer for helping make this other-worldly experience a pain-free collaboration.

Process Stills

Storyboard

Launch Photos

In Blacklist's Words

Blacklist and Nike have taken their relationship to the next level with their latest collaboration: the Nike LunarEpic athletic shoe campaign. The campaign’s launch is anchored by a gorgeously rendered film, co-directed by creative studios Tendril and Frame with the backing of an international team of talented artists. This hero spot sees the shoe’s organic shapes and structure materialize across space and time, setting down and leaving its signature print in the dust of a far off planet. The campaign then extends into our humble Earth world, playing on giant screens in NikeTown stores around the globe, as well as heavy rotation on Nike’s social channels, where the shoe was teased in mysterious short clips before its final epic reveal at Nike’s flagship NYC store.

To achieve the distinctly otherworldly look of the film, Tendril imagined the spot itself as a transmission received from deep space, a rare chance to look on as something truly new materializes from the elements before our eyes. Set in an alien landscape inspired in part by the visually stunning Pariah canyon, Blacklist and Tendril together assembled a global network of design and animation specialists to focus on each aspect of the film, which in turn were each focused on a different feature of the LunarEpic’s unique design. In the end, viewers are not only mesmerized by the journey and the transformation that takes place, but are compelled to recognize the distinct features that make the LunarEpic so remarkable. The final film was featured in New York, Berlin, London, Portland, and Tokyo.

Credits

Client: Nike
Nike Global Brand Communications: Tad Greenough
Executive Producer, Nike Brand Communication Studio: Noah Stanik
Nike Producer: Meagan Moore

Production Company: Blacklist
EP: Andrew Linsk
Producer: Karen Lawler, Alex Unick

Studio: Tendril & Frame
Co-Directors: Chris Bahry, Tom Crate
EPs: Kate Bate, Thomas Bay
HOP / Producer: Mary Anne Ledesma
Producer: Louise Bejerholm
Storyboards: Greg Boychuk, Gabe Sapienza
Editor: Tom Crate
Pitch Concepts: Chris Bahry, Tom Crate, Wojtek Szklarski, Ann Kruetzkamp, Marco Iozzi

Reveal Film:
Lead 3D Artists & Animation: Nejc Polovsak, Matt Frodsham, Simon Fiedler
Particle FX: Simon Fiedler, Alasgar Hasanov, Marcin Porebski Shoe Rigging & Animation: Matias Hansen
Lighting & Render: Nejc Polovsak, Matt Frodsham
Additional 3D Artists: Sacha Wechselmann, Ben Pilgrim Shoe Modeling: Marek Denko
Matte Painting: Bojan Zoric, Form Language
Compositing: Chris Bahry, Brad Husband

Teaser Film:
3D Artists: Christian Hecht, Alasgar Hasanov, Chris Bahry
FX: Valdemaras Dzengo, Alasgar Hasanov
Light & Render: Christian Hecht, Brad Husband
2D Animation: Gabriel Rocha
Compositing: Chris Bahry, Brad Husband
Additional Compositing: Alexandre Veaux
Sound Design & Music: John Black of CypherAudio

A couple months back, we featured this very inspiring collaborative case study about the Nike LunarEpic Flyknit shoe campaign. Today we are featuring a comeback on this project with Tendril and Blacklist and their supreme work with the team at Nike.

We are welcomed into the next level that the team brought to the table and make sure to watch the process video as well. We just can’t imagine how much freedom they had from such a big brand and how technical challenges they must have encountered. While watching the video, I just can’t help to notice how incredible is the sound. They have built a procedural noise-based curve animation tool that replicates and expand on Cinema 4D’s MoSpline.

In this second phase of Nike's LunarEpic launch campaign, the shoe has arrived on Earth bringing with it otherworldly powers. Roads curve and stretch seemingly into infinity. Impossible runs suddenly feel effortless. Gravity is nonexistent.

Watch the Process

This was our sixth project with the amazing team at Nike. Working with them and Blacklist, it was our task to take Nike's creative strategy, and then conceive and develop a narrative and visual structure for the brand film around the tagline 'run forever'. The manifestation was a 45s film and sound design (created by CypherAudio), key print and digital 'hero' visuals, social media clips and a large-scale track and field dome installation. The process with Nike is always incredibly collaborative and exciting. From there, the macro surface knitting effects were also prototyped and build in Houdini over the course of a couple weeks and then rendered in Arnold. The bending and warping landscape sections also took quite a bit of RnD to get right. In the end, we used a blend of multiple World Machine displacements and Xgen scattering in Maya. The laser-cutting sequence also posed its own set of puzzles, which we solved in Cinema4D using an arcane stack of deformers and morphs.

Credits

• Client: Nike
• Global Brand Communication Studio EP: Noah Stanik
• Global Brand Communication Studio Producer: Meagen Moore
• Global Brand Design, Running Art Director: David Brady
• Global Brand Design, Running Studio Manager: Denise Wild
• Production Company: Blacklist
• EP: Andrew Linsk
• Producer: Karen Lawler
• Production Studio: Tendril
• Co-Directors: Chris Bahry of Tendril, Tom Crate of Frame
• Executive Producer: Kate Bate
• Producer: John Szebegyinszki
• Storyboards: Greg Boychuk
• Editor: Tom Crate
• Pitch Concepts: Chris Bahry, Evaldas Cesnavicius, Wojtek Szklarski
• 3D Artists: Alasgar Hasanov, Alexandre Veaux, Florent Arnould, Christoffer Bjerre, Marcelo Souza, Will Sharkey
• FX: Alasgar Hasanov, Marcin Porebski
• Lighting and Render: Alexandre Veaux, Marcelo Souza, Christoffer Bjerre, Lorne Kwechansky
• Additional 3D Artists: Christian Hecht, Ben Pilgrim
• Compositing: Chris Bahry, Alexandre Veaux, Lorne Kwechansky
• 2D Animation: Leo Mateus, Marissa Godwin
• Music and Sound Design: John Black of CypherAudio

More information: http://tendril.ca.

Design concepts are cool, but bring case studies for real projects is awesome! This service called Workhiro is an example of very well done UX/UI, exploring interactions and information architecture to create a great user experience.

Workhiro is the simplest way to track job applicants, engage with them and collaborate faster with your hiring team. Say goodbye to spreadsheets and scattered documents.

Take a look below in some parts of the project and go to read the full case study on Behance.