Ikebana Mini-film

We challenged ourselves to create our very first 3d mini-film for our talk at Forward Festival in Hamburg.

This year we were asked to hold a speech at the Forward Festival in Hamburg, with a very special surprise for us: the talk had been sponsored by Maxon. 3D is still a pretty new thing for our studio, but we are so fascinated by its possibilities. So we take that as a challenge to see how we could turn our 2D style into something three-dimensional, that still is completely in line with our aesthetics and design & animation approach. We started from a very fun, sadly-rejected by a client, 2D illustration from a larger project and we tried to transform it in 3D. While we are pretty used to using 3D for more abstract shapes, we wanted to put our more figurative 3D skills to the test, creating some geometrical flowers and some fun, exaggerated characters.

Check it on — Behance 3D feature + Forward Festival interview Colorful, geometric & lots of personality: The genius behind design studio Illo + Instagram post n° 709 + n° 707 + Dribbble post n° 319 + Goodmoves.tv Video of the day

Altino

Poverino

Our natural artistic language is still 2D, so one of the main challenges has been starting from 2D and coming up with a three dimensional physicality that can work both for design and animation. In our very visually-synthetic style, we tend to use abstraction, masks and continuous matching lines that really work well in 2D — but in 3D you can’t cheat with perspective views. Another challenge for a studio so focused on color choices like ours is how 3D is not only about color, but also about textures and materials — so we had to develop the right sensibility to create something in line with our aesthetics.

Breakdown

Animation process

We also had fun thinking about the possible applications of this animation visualizing it as part of a boarding screen or in some posters and Instagram stories.

Posters

We had the chance to present this project at Forward Festival in Hamburg on July, 2nd.

In 2024, we have been contacted to bring our characters to life and showcase them in the IFC mall — It's awesome to see them so big and real :)

Credits — Creative Direction Ilenia Notarangelo + Design & 3D Modelling Sofia Buti + 3D Design & Animation Matteo Ruffinengo + 2D Animation Lead Laurentiu Lunic + 2D Animation David Cubitt + Sound Design Fabrizio Martini