Magazine

THE Vision

exclusive photos co-finder interview how do they do it?

Hellohikimori Edition - Winter 2016

5,95 EUR

a look in the studio of hellohikimori

Intro: Elke maand gaan we opzoek naar een toonaangevend bedrijf uit de sector.

Deze maand viel ons oog op Hellohikimori, gevestigd te Parijs. Dankzij zijn 12 jaren ervaring heeft het reeds een sterke marktspositie ingenomen.

Klanten als Lady Million, Playstation en Louis Vuitton geven hun reclame graag uit aan hellohikimori.

We gaan dieper in op het ontstaan, de typische HKI touch en de ontwerpers achter de campagnes.

Veel leesplezier, Angelique Buijzen Hoofdredactrice

P6. 2014 Wishes P8. Interview with nathalie melato P12. Software P14. Awards P15. Colofon

Winter 2016 Hellohikimori edition

P4. How do they do it?

How do they do it?

4

Nathalie and I met about 15 years ago, at a communications agency. We worked together more and more as our pitches met with more success, and we were doing a lot of the creative work

on them. Naturally, with time, we wondered if we shouldn’t be focusing less on our jobs, and more on what we enjoyed instead.

So, we got the idea to leave the ad agency and start something

together. We had an appointment two days later with a client, and we didn’t have a clue as to how to introduce ourselves.

We had just seen a report on Ikimoris in Japan; Ikikomori

“open”. We have two completely different paths. I come from the publishing world, with training in graphic arts.

I studied typography, but in a very traditional way. For me, it’s an applied arts school, art center; I have the same basics as Nathalie, but not in motion design. So we started structuring our team with developers, motion designers...

We love the diversity of our team: we have a Greek, a Canadian, a Swede ... amazing and varied backgrounds.

We like doing things together; We’re crazy for burgers - we try to find the BEST burger in

Paris; And we try to eat a burger once a week.

We’re console gaming fanatics.

Sometimes for an hour or two, then we catch a bit of a lecture. We often work on luxury brands, but also entertainment clients like Orange Cinema Série/ That’s allowed us to work on shows like True Blood, Games Of Thrones, and others. We have a wide-open creative license. We watch the shows, and brainstorm ideas ... this is how we made the game for The Walking Dead. We try to make interactive experiences.

We are storytellers.

-We’re very fortunate to have this creative freedom.

means “cloistered” in Japanese “those who refuse society.”

Apparently, the plural in Japanese is Ikimori, and we added the “Hello” to the beginw e we were still a little creates things we feel are like us.

I’m passionate about horror movies. Peter Jackson is my hero.

Ikikomori means “cloistered” in Japanese “those who refuse society.”

Our inspiration comes a lot from the shows, videos,designs, product designs ... and various resources.

Matthew Barney of Cremaster was a huge thing for us. We found the project to be super intense, super creative, completely unbounded, coming out of nowhere. He’s the only one who

Hell Raiser and Brain Dead, are wells of inspiration for me.

We always work in a conventional manner, that is to say we draw, we write, we mix tools, be it digital or photographic materials. We story board everything, the drawings... and we combine it all. We don’t have set process,but

after the creative brief, we often begin with a reflection period.

As we all have diverse backgrounds and experiences, everyone has input and ideas and their own perspective. We then formalize it using images, sketches, or photos. For the TEN Project by Fotolia, we chose the theme: “Drinks”, which seemed to us to be the quirkiest, allowing us more freedom for the execution. We focused mainly on the subject of overdosing, which we represented through a multiplicity of elements and overlays.

We wanted to parallel the theme with a simple gesture, which can lead to overdose, on a background frame of absinthe, evoking Rimbaud’s eternal and

Bron: http://www.allreadable.com/aa1f6kP

delirious poetry. I generated a body with Poser, which I integrated with Cinema 4D. Once the body is modelled and we had the 3D renderings on a transparent background, they can be worked on in Photoshop, where we then make the cutouts, assemble the body, add the renderings using different tools. We envisioned a periodic table of drinks, so we drew it in Illustrator, then modelled it in 3D, which we blasted it by adding various explosions in Photoshop. There was quite a bit of work done on the face also: here, we used some Fotolia images of liquified broken bottles, fluids... we worked a lot on the dripping on the character’s body and face. “Apple+L”, “Apple+U” to change colorimetrics, intensity, and these kind of things. We also added some flare elements; not flares from Photoshop - but from After Effects, where we’ve used them on transparent backgrounds

MMXIV WISHES HELLOHIKIMORIâ„¢

6

Original concept, Website Art Direction & Development.

Our wishes for 2014.

Deze ontwerpen hangen nu in de studio ter decoratie en hebben de AWWARDS gewonnen.

Bron: http://hellohikimori.com/#!/work

Nathalie Melato

8

Please give us a brief bio of yourself.

I am Nathalie co-founder of (HKI)™Hellohikimori™, our design studio based in Paris. We created HKI™ with my partner David Ronhel in 2004, feeling like focusing on our creation work much more than in our previous jobs.

We built out a human scale company, so we control every step of our work from the creation concept until its final delivery.

We provide creative ideas, interactive storytelling experiences, mixing graphic design, motions design (3D, Flash, Html and Webgl) but we also produce, shoot

and edit videos and movies. All of that for branded or artistic purposes.

We currently work mainly for Beauty, fashion and luxury brands, but also for exciting entertainment companies.

What do you do for inspiration?

The common thing to say would of course be our travels, the people we meet, the music we listen to and the experiences we live. But we are strongly inspired by some creative references we feel close to, may it be the HBO series (and their atmosphere) we are all fond of, here at the studio, or the new technologies we

keep trying out and playing with, in order to create our proper experience.

What do you regard as being your biggest achievement?

We are very proud to be independent which was our biggest wish when we started HKI™. We have big names and companies as clients and they trust us, while we managed to remain a small team of passionated people, all dedicated to each project we lead.

How do you relax or unwind?

We actually have a video game space at the studio. Sometimes, between pro-

jects, we spend a certain amount of time battling each other. Currently we are playing Trials Evolution, a motocross game, Mortal Kombat and Tekken.

We’also are all fans of burgers, so we try out all the burger places in Paris and do our own chart of the best ones.

If you weren’t working on the internet what would you be doing?

At HKI™, we all come from different places. So if we mix everything we’re individually interested in, we’d probably create furniture, be fashion designers, rockstars, and would write novels and

comic books. Then we would adapt these as movies or series. But that can still be part of our forthcoming plans...

Who do you rate as being the top 3 design companies?

We love the work of Tronic for their creative vision, Troika because they have sharp skills in 3D in their work for broadcast channels. We’re also very interested in Serial Cut for their graphic design abilities.

Are there any websites that have shone through as being pioneering in the last 5 years or so?

We’ve truely been

Has winning FWA awards helped you in any way?

Of course. It gave us a strong visibility and credibility amongst the industry. And today, clients are coming to us having seen our work first on the FWA website.

What did your very first site look like?

Is it still online?

Our very first website was for Studioline - L’Oréal Paris, and was called «Send Your Style». It was a creative plat-

form dedicated to artists to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the brand then.

And we won our very first FWA award and Adobe site of the day with this one! It’s no longer online, but you can still check out the demo here.

Have you been a part of a campaign that was rooted in digital and THEN reached over into other consumer touchpoints? Did this happen organically or was it a part of the plan from the beginning?

Yes we had this chance. In 2009, we launched Diesel Fragrance’s new male fragrance, Only The Brave. We took care

Bron: http://www.thefwa.com/interview/nathalie-melato

amazed by the Rome project last year by Chris Milk, with the interactive movie «3 dreams of black» using the WebGL technology.

of the whole digital campaign (designed the website, the banners, the microsites for the local events), but also did the videos for the launch event that took place in Berlin. It was a global 360° communications action, with offline events being relayed online thanks to the digital supports we created. The campaign was also implemented in video games on a microsoft platform, so it generated lots of buzz. We also gained lots of press and online PR fallouts. It actually was the most complete project we took part of. The web is getting out of the web.

Do you find that thinking in digital solutions alone hinders you? Do you feel the urge to solve the problem using all mediums necessary?

Yes of course. We’ve already started working with this in mind. That’s why we multiply the reaching points: indoor, outdoor, mobile apps, anywhere you can find any sort of screens.

Looking 10 years in to the future, how far can websites go? As far as cooking eggs, maybe.

Of all the websites you/your company have produced, which one are you

most proud of?

Definitely The Walking Dead for Orange Cinema Séries. We won 4 prizes for this work: 3 Promax awards (including 1 gold and 2 silver) and 1 FWA award as site of the day.

What was the toughest thing you ever did with Flash?

How long did you spend on it? Is it still online? The one mentionned above, The Walking Dead, on which we spent about 6 months.

And sure it’s still online, but without the game... But you can still see it here.

Do you think Flash is here to stay?

Well, today there are upcoming technologies that one cannot ignore, such as WebGL, that we’ve been using more than the Flash technology lately. Especially on this big project we’ve been working on for over a year now, that we plan to submit here within the end of the year 2012.

What are your views on design/ graphic school. Do you think someone can get into the field without educational experience in a school environment?

There’s always been talented and gift-

ed individuals who learnt everything on their own, but still, we look a lot into what the students from Hyper Island school in Sweden do.

What would be your ultimate vehicle to travel in?

A Delorean to meet Elvis.

What country excites you the most in terms of innovation?

Well, we always look at what the US agencies do, and we more and more feel like trying to partner up with some talented ones over there.

With our european and yet particular touch, we think that

our spirit would totally match with the US state of mind.

There must be a project that you have always dreamed of doing, what is it?

We actually dream of writing, directing and producing a whole movie. Or a new series format, which would be interactive and exlusively online, but inspired by the iconic HBO style.

What does the future hold for your company, or you as a person?

All the best, we surely hope. It has been a privilege, thanks very much Our pleasure.

11

Bron: http://www.cinema4d.nl/nl/software/cinema-4d-studio

Cinema 4D Cinema 4D

David Ronhel : We wanted to parallel the theme with a simple gesture, which can lead to overdose, on a background frame of absinthe, evoking Rimbaud’s eternal and delirious poetry.

I generated a body with Poser, which I integrated with Cinema 4D. Once the body is modelled and we had the 3D renderings on a transparent background, they can be worked on in Photoshop, where we then make the cutouts, assemble the body, add the renderings using different tools.

Cinema 4D Studio is de absolute top voor de professionele 3D-artiest.

Wil je geavanceerde 3D-beelden maken en wil je daarbij kunnen rekenen op de hulp van experts om je klanten met verstomming te slaan? Dan is Studio jouw beste keuze.

Cinema 4D Studio bevat natuurlijk alle tools die je in Prime, Visualize en Broadcast vindt. Daar voegt Studio krachtige

gereedschappen aan toe voor karakteranimatie, Hair, een Dynamics-engine en een onbeperkt aantal renderclients.

Daarmee kan je elk project, hoe complex ook, met gemak de baas.

De Character-tools maken het makkelijk om Character Rigs en geavanceerde karakteranimaties te realiseren. Haar of bont toevoegen is al even simpel dankzij

een reeks Hair-tools waarmee je haar laat groeien en haar kan kammen, styleren en animeren. De Physics Engine legt zelf de meest complexe botsingen en dynamische interacties tussen objecten binnen handbereik. Netwerkrendering laat je alle computers gebruiken die beschikbaar zijn in jouw netwerk om je animaties nog sneller klaar te krijgen.

AWARDS 2014 AWWWARDS SOTD FWA SOTD 2013 FWA SOTD PROMAXBDA SILVER FWA MOTD WEBBY AWARD HONOREE WEBBY AWARD HONOREE WEBBY AWARD HONOREE WEBBY AWARD HONOREE

WEBBY AWARD 2012 FWA SOTD FWA ADOBE TCEA AWWWARDS SOTD LOVIE AWARD GOLD LOVIE AWARD SILVER WEBBY AWARD NOMINEE WEBBY AWARD NOMINEE FWA SOTD AWWWARDS SOTD FWA SOTD PROMAXBDA BRONZE WEBBY AWARD HONOREE FWA SOTD AWWWARDS SOTD PROMAXBDA GOLD IPROMAXBDA SILVER IPROMAXBDA SILVER WEBBY AWARD HONOREE

2011 IFWA SOTD CANNES LIONS BRONZE FWA SOTD IFWA SOTD FWA MOTD

WEBBY AWARD HONOREE WEBBY AWARD 2010 HONOREE FWA SOTD

SOTD WEBBY AWARD HONOREE FWA SOTD ADOBE FWA SOTD IIWEBBY AWARD

Bron: http://hellohikimori.com/#!/references

14

2015 FWA SOTD FWA MOTD FWA MOTD CINÉTÉVÉThe AWWWARDS SOTD FWA SOTD MOTD

colofo

n

Hoofdredactrice: Angelique Buijzen Beeldmateriaal: Hellohikimori Grafisch design: Angelique Buijzen

Volgen d

e maan

M/M Paris:

d

an art and design partnership consisting of Mathias Augustyniak (born 1967, Cavaillon) and Michael Amzalag (born 1968, Paris),[1] established in Paris in 1992.