When it comes to storytelling, brands have been using characters for years. You might remember the angry orange man accosting people in the street in the name of advertising a certain orange-pop, or more recently the poetic CGI robot regaling tales of roaming for a mobile phone provider.
It doesn’t matter that the character is an actor, a sketch or a CGI creation – they are each memorable in their own ways, and the examples above are memorable eras for both Tango and O2.
We love a character at Fluid too. And when we began working with The Cambridge Building Society in 2019, we realised that people were at the heart of everything they did – whether it was their customers, or their teams. And it was their point of difference in a market that was being challenged by a new era of faceless digital banks.
So it felt natural to help reinvent the building society with a modern, digital twist. And this meant imagining a brand built around people and their milestone moments. A visual identity that had the courage to be playful, and cut-through the mundane and stuffy approaches of other industry players, to grab their audiences and transport them into the world of ‘The Cambridge’, all using the simple power of a character.
That’s where the Fluid Image & Motion team came in. They worked closely with the Brand & Creative team to devise a unique character style that could transform the client’s brand into its current era.
From the spark of an idea and rough hand-drawn sketches, came fully-rigged scenes of characters, sprinkled with a cheeky sense of humour. It’s been an exciting ride devising and bringing to life endless scenarios for The Cambridge Building Society’s campaigns. One that has pushed their brand and our teams out of their comfort zones.
Jess is the Fluid CGI artist who turns roughly sketched ideas into walking, talking 3D characters for The Cambridge. She wanted to share her favourite three things about working with them and their characters…
One: Being able to throw the rulebook out of the window
When working on CGI projects for architectural clients, we are meticulous about creating something that feels real. We want people to think they are looking at a photograph, not a carefully crafted CGI scene. We labour over every detail, from textures to lighting. It’s creative, yet regimented.
When it comes to character-led CGI artistry, you can throw the rulebook out of the window and enter a digital ‘playground’ with endless opportunity and outcomes. This is how it all began with The Cambridge, and we worked hard to bring our vision for the brand alive. We let our imaginations run wild and created a visual world that is uniquely ‘The Cambridge’ – one that is bright and vibrant, and full of interesting characters, often based on real people…
Two: Gaining the trust to push the client’s boundaries
The character style for The Cambridge has really hit its stride, and it’s all thanks to a trusting relationship that people like Dan, Lucy and I have built with the marketing teams. We understand each other, and more importantly they understand that we might throw some crazy ideas about once in a while, but they trust us to explore them, and together we come up with new and exciting character scenarios that help promote their products, while resonating with their target audiences. It’s a real partnership.
Three: The opportunity to develop personally
It goes without saying that the client gets the very best from us, but like any good agency, we only grow when pushed out of our comfort zone. So instead of saying “no we can’t do that”, we’ll figure it out.
From a personal perspective, the step from working on photorealistic interiors to crafting stylised characters has been a learning curve I have really welcomed. I’ve had to unlearn the rules ingrained into how I work. But I’ve learned so many new skills, that not only enable me to take the characters from strength to strength, but to inform other CGI projects we’ve worked on. I’m a big kid at heart, and geek-out over Disney and Pixar animated films like Soul and Moana. So to be able take influences from my personal passions and apply them to client work is a dream come true.
Below you can see how the characters began and developed. Watch the video to see it all come to life.
We've also been working on something really exciting for The Cambridge, and we can't wait to share it with you.
If you’re interested in adding character to your brand, get in touch.