Active Theory

adidas
CHILE20

Best Visual Design - Aesthetic / Nominee
Active Theory

Best Visual Design - Aesthetic

In a year of global cultural changes, launching an apparel range in a meaningful and engaging way was the challenge brought to us by adidas earlier this year. - Active Theory Team
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Q: Can you describe your project and the concept behind it? A: To make an impact launching an apparel range, it was important to develop a launch campaign that told both the unique story of the collection, and communicated the craft and quality of the clothes. While we were focused on a core digital activation idea, our work on the CHILE20 launch campaign would also include: retail ads for over 500 Foot Locker stores, social media assets, creating a high quality pre-rendered product film, and supporting with PR.
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Q: What influenced your chosen technical approach, and how did it go beyond past methods? A: Each product needed to be meticulously digital crafted in-house by our 3D team. We created multiple different versions of each garment to test various techniques to optimize the high-res mesh models. These included Marvelous Designer (with tools in Z-Brush), polygon reduction in Cinema 4D, and even meshing models through VDB volumes to guide the creation for the final optimized garment models used on the site.

When did you experience a breakthrough or an "a-ha" moment during this project?

Using the famous adidas ‘three stripes’ motif, we began to explore how we could create different ‘product worlds’ that could represent different thematic elements of the campaign. Each of the three worlds had a different visual identity, reflecting the legacy of the Chile product and how it’s evolved into what it is today.

Watch

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Q: What web technologies, tools, and resources did you use to develop this? A: The experience was created in WebGL using a series of internal pipelines.
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Q: How did the final product meet or exceed your expectations? A: The CHILE20 campaign went live in September 2020 across website, social media and in-store retail. It also had PR support from Hypebeast and Outpump. Despite launching in the middle of the pandemic with an all-new digital approach to production, the collection was met with a warm reception both online and in-store.