The Groop Collaborates with Wieden+Kennedy's Tokyo Team
December 06, 2003
The Los Angeles-based design collective, THE_GROOP today announced it has collaborated with Wieden+Kennedy's Tokyo team to design the DVD and DVD packaging for the Nike Presto Asia advertising campaign as well as the Wieden+Kennedy Tokyo Lab promotional DVD for the launch of the W+K and Polystar new record label.
THE_GROOP was selected as Wieden+Kennedy's partner because of in-depth interactive design expertise and strong ability to seamlessly integrate their creative team into the W+K team. "The_Groop is designed to facilitate a new, graduated level of creative collaboration - across our network of contributors as well as industry partners - it was an honor to work with Wieden + Kennedy and Nike." said Jose Caballer, THE_GROOP's founding creative director, "and we are looking forward to many future strategic opportunities."
To promote the new Nike Presto advertising campaign in Asia, Wieden+Kennedy partnered with THE_GROOP to create a groundbreaking, interactive DVD highlighting the key artists driving the "Instant Go" campaign: including David Ellis A.K.A. Skwerm, Sasuke, both members of the artist group "Barnstormers," Frek, DJ Uppercut, and Motion Theory, the Venice, CA-based motion graphics studio. The DVD, released in February 2003, features the 3 advertising spots aired on Japanese television, the artist's biographies (in English and Japanese), additional photography of the artist's sketches and paintings, and behind-the-scenes footage of the artists in action, including one-on-one interviews, edited by Eduardo Garcia. The DVD packaging design features a striking case containing posters of each artist's work that can be perforated into post-cards. "I'm still amazed at the incredible work and process," said Kenji Tanaka, W+K's Nike Presto project producer.
To promote the launch of their new record label, W+K Tokyo Lab, Wieden+Kennedy and Polystar again tapped the talents of THE_GROOP because of their innovative collaborative approach to interactive projects and expertise working with fresh design talent. "It is refreshing to see what is normally a very internal and individual process externalized and shared. I am happy that we have a few students/fresh grads on-board" said Eric Cruz, W+K art director, "they push things much further than settled designers." The DVD, released in July 2003, features video samplers, biographies and interviews of the label's first 3 Toyko-based artists: Takagi Masakatsu, DJ Uppercut, and Hifana. The DVD is packaged in a bi-fold design: one side contains the DVD, the other contains 3 posters; 1 per artist. THE_GROOP leveraged a highly specialized collaboration technique to work closely with the W+K team - the combined teams designed a unique aesthetic for the new W+K brand, as well as an individual visual design for eartist: THE_GROOP assigned one team of an brand steward, a designer, an animator, a sound designer and an illustrator for each artist. Over 20 global GROOP members collaborated on the project, key members of the team included Sharon Cardinal, CaLArts graduate, Jose Caballer, award-winning faculty member at Art Center College of Design and UCLA, Wade Convay, recent Art Center College of Design graduate, and also included DJ Jorge Verdin/Clorofilia of the Nortec Collective and fine artist/illustrator Justin Wood.