Weareseventeen’s 3D motion film for Frontify is a “tactile expression” of brand guidelines

Frontify is a software offering a holistic approach to brand management. Helping organisations to ensure consistent experiences, it supports brands in creating brand guidelines that suit their needs and message. With 2.5 million users including the likes of Oglivy, Trainline and Volkswagen, the software has reached new heights in recent years. To demonstrate the dynamic nature of the brand, the London-based creative agency weareseventeen has been enlisted to create a new visual language for Frontify with an adjacent brand film.

When approaching the visual language, weareseventeen wanted to reflect the nature of Frontify’s work. “Frontify allows brands to flex their creativity by embracing new brand opportunities in motion, 3D and AI,” outlines a press release. “Weareseventeen used this as their North Star when creating an expansive, layered and seamless bespoke world in motion.” As a result, Frontify uses an expressive 3D motion language, taking “cues and compliments” from the softwares “original slick, confident and minimal branding”.

The film replicates Frontify’s content blocks, reimagining them through abstraction, texture and scale to form part of their own colourful, tactile and collaborative 3D universe. Each content block was animated to reflect their function but, importantly, each one needed to have ‘character’ without actually becoming a character. Throughout the film you’re guided on a journey to each content block smoothly and seamlessly, with pillow-like textures, glass-like forms, floating type and iridescent screens – all coming together to create a dreamlike simulation of using the service.

For the film’s audio, weareseventeen collaborated with Box of Toys, a London-based sound studio. The studio created a bespoke ambient sound with layers of sonic texture inducing bird song and subtle references to technological devices with the aim of “simultaneously enriching the finer details, while adding depth to make the universe feel real”, the press release continues.

“This project was all about world building – literally creating Frontify's universe from the atoms and particles of brand management and guidelines. Very quickly throwing out the idea of it ever being a traditional demo film, this needed to look and feel like an adventure into the future,” says weareseventeen’s creative director Gary Roberts. “Through the trust and support of Frontify, we've managed to evolve a typically flat element in branding and create a multi-dimensional and tactile expression of brand guidelines.”