Picade
One of my first jobs at Pimoroni as head of design was to create a promo video for their new DIY desktop arcade machine. Their previous designer (Lydia Lapinski of Thoughts Make Things) had created an 80s hyper stylised look for the packaging and storyboarded the promo before I took over.
Working with the Head of Marketing (and Pimoroni's chief photographer – Sandy Macdonald), we built a small set in a warehouse where we shot the main footage, which I then editted and stylised in After Effects to give it that nostalgically fuzzy VHS feel.
I also created the animated graphics and titles throughout the video (using a combination of Cinema4D and After Effects) and composed the music (with Ableton Live and some 80s synth emulations from Arturia). The intro was a great chance to flex some C4D skills, creating a neon version of the logo against an 80's cyberspace background. I also created a fake computer display with wireframe diagrams, fake game footage and some other graphical flourishes.
Half a year after the launch of the new-look Picade, Pimoroni launched the Picade Console, an arcade stick version that eschewed the built-in screen of the orignal to plug directly into a TV. This was a smaller promotional project in terms of scope but we kept the theme of the original and shot extra footage under better lighting conditions, sourcing a wonderfully retro TV for the job too.
