The Brilliant creative team blog

Well, whad’ya know, the new Volkswagen 2012 Super Bowl XLVI TV commercial has been released early, and unexpectedly builds on the canine theme featured in ‘The Bark Side’ teaser spot. ‘The Dog Strikes Back’ features an overweight pooch called Bolt, who undertakes lots of doggy exercises to get fit so that he can chase the German company’s new Beetle. That’s all very cute, but where does the Star Wars link make itself known? We won’t spoil it here, but there is a galaxy far far away-tinged ending, keeping the running theme from last year’s ‘The Force’ film. An edited 60-second version of VW’s 76-second clip will air during the 2012 Super Bowl XLVI on Sunday 5 February, along with high-budget car ads from Acura and Honda.

Buoyed by the 2011 success of its Star Wars-themed ‘The Force’ advert (Adweek’s ‘Commercial of the Year 2011’, 44 million YouTube views, 6.8 billion impressions), Volkswagen is again going intergalactic for its 2012 Super Bowl XLVI TV commercial. Called the ‘Bark Side’, this 64-second teaser previews the full advert which will air on 5 February. Featuring a collective of canines (some ‘dressed’ as characters from the series’ titles) barking the ‘Imperial March’ from the film’s soundtrack, it’s looking like it will cause as much of a sensation as last year’s Vader-themed clip.

Skype have relocated their headquarters to Palo Alto, California and enlisted Blitz to fully renovate a 54,000 square feet space to support more than 250 employees.

The work areas are allocated to the perimeter of the space to benefit from natural light and lower noise levels. Collaboration zones (meeting rooms, coffee kiosks, white board areas) are centered along main access spines on each level encouraging staff to literally ‘meet in the middle’. Contemplation spaces are interspersed in the form of overlapping casual lounges and a variety of environments have been created that facilitate different interactions.

"The space reflects Skype’s spirit of innovation in a highly functional yet creative workplace designed to encourage interaction and spontaneity, as well as meet specific acoustic requirements in support of their extensive use of AV."

You can see more of the project on the Blitz website.

Here at Brilliant we are lucky enough to be involved with projects that require nicely designed and highly detailed illustration on a daily basis. This is mostly a good thing but it can also mess with your deadlines and cause mini panic attacks if you get carried away or even worse, a change in style or subject is required.

We love to produce artwork that is something a little different from the last but delving into the new and unexplored; whilst exciting can be deadly with a time constraint so its a good thing that everyone at Brilliant are designers at heart and not just at work!

Personally I spend as much of my free time as I can practicing my design and illustration techniques, which can be anything from an hour a night to the whole evening and few early morning hours. The practice allows me in theory more time to complete the work and produce something awesome as well as being able to offer a variety of styles, techniques and concepts.

Having an arsenal of finishing abilities behind you allows you to put more time into the purpose and messaging of a design.


(Image is a mixture of 3d, vector, photography, hand drawn elements and Photoshop techniques)