When agency SouthPaw first contacted us to create these animations for Octopus Group, our minds instantly gravitated towards tentacles... Until we read the brief stating NO eight-legged creatures would be cast in the making of these films.

Creative aspirations re-set, our team went back to the brief in question. Commissioning three short animations to highlight Octopus Group's 'Values & Behaviours' for an internal communications campaign.

Our Process

Although Octopus didn't want an octopus... they did feel it was important to personify their three core values using 'Brand Characters'. Octopus's brand ethos states "everything we do has a sense of humanity to it, so it is important that our communication adds warmth and appeal to people’s hearts…as well as their minds". With this, we got to work!

Character Design

We were interested in the idea of a bold and expressive shape when designing these characters. Below you can see how our first set of designs explored this, by combining shapes with human-like limbs and features.

After experimenting with a few iterations, we worked with our clients to develop this polygonal body shape with flexible limbs. These characters allowed us to achieve realistic expression, and poses with dynamic motion.

Storyboarding & Animatic

Animation

All of the pre-production stages mentioned previously meant that once it was time to animate, there were absolutely no surprises. The storyboards and animatics created a blueprint for each film and our skilled animation team got to work. In total, we produced three films for each of Octopus Group's core values. Mixing up character animation with animating typography to bring each concept to life, in a fun and memorable way.