Little Ivan wants to impress Evie, the girl running a successful homemade lemonade stand across the street from his orange juice stall.
Thus a heated competition emerges, that intensifies over the years: genuine stalls make room for fancy branded shops, subsequently replaced by massive monster-restaurants serving processed food and bombarding people with flashy ads.
Until one day...
Produced by Chipotle, the film was created by CAA and Passion Pictures under the direction of Saschka Unseld (Pixar's The Blue Umbrella).
Here I've collected samples of my work for this project, developed closely with amazing art director Katy Wu and unstoppable producer Sibylle Preuss.
Brands evolution — I was responsible for designing the three fictional brands that feature in the movie. Since the story spans multiple decades (roughly from the 60s to the present), the identity systems had to reflect design clichés/style of the time and growth of business over the years. "Lemon Land" and "Mister Orange” develop into an increasingly fake and impersonal brand, while "Evie and Ivan's" represents the perfect balance of a genuine sustainable business.
Logos exploration — Developing pop logotypes was at the core of our design process: several personality types, shapes, colors, typefaces and layouts have been carefully considered. Logos had to be overall plausible yet not resemble any real brands for obvious legal reasons (we also had to change Ivan's business name at some point!).
Mascots evolution — As a character designer I was delighted to work on the evolution of the mascots in collaboration with A.D. Katy Wu. The design concept was for these little fellas to become more polished and wacky over time while gaining centrality in the ads.
Mascots development — Mascots are like co-stars in the movie, so we took some time to run a proper casting session... from flags, to billboards, to animated screens, they had to speak for their brands.
Posters & billboards — Advertising supports were the obvious applications for our fictional brands: from the early handmade posters promoting innocent snacks and fruit juices to large-scale eye-popping billboards filled with junk food, they tell the story of growing competition and consumerism in the film.
→ Please note: billboards food artworks are by A.D. Katy Wu.
Branded stuff — ...but there is more to branding than just ads: I was asked to design flyers, packaging, restaurant props and signs, buildings and food truck graphics and color schemes.
Props design — Even minor assets needed some graphic design, so detail maniacs rejoice! Office props, factory screens and signage, shop signs, vehicles license plates... Most of these designs are kind of hidden: can you spot them?
Film title — Lastly, I also took care of the final movie screen content, where signature Chipotle tag-line needed a cinematic twist. The Client opted for a vibrant natural kaleidoscope matched with a lively casual script type. All's well that ends well!