Darlie – Zesty Fresh

Brand:

Darlie Southeast Asia

Category:

Animated Production

Year:

2020

Animation and Merchandising

Cool & Fresh Sensation with Zesty Fresh!

We have always been aiming to use our original characters as a way to communicate with teenagers and young adults. Through this project, we had the opportunity to collaborate with Darlie South East Asia and communicate their relaunch of their product targeted to a younger audience, Zesty Fresh. In this campaign, we introduced Maya & Laras as the face of Zesty Fresh, as two young and active girls living in the city.

Darlie Zesty Fresh Animation Video

Style Frame

KEY ANIMATION

Through the development process, we wanted to develop a piece that is aligned between the look & feel of the animation and the narration we are envisioning. The toothpaste gives a fresh & clean vibe, so we wanted that fresh & clean vibe to be felt visually as well. The two colors of the product are represented through the two girls: lemon (yellow), and peach (pink). We use bright and saturated colors even in the background. For a youthful feel, we try to emphasize on bright, active, and fun through the execution of the characters until the whole animation.

Character Concept

In the character development process, actually we already have the characters from our original Webtoon title. However, we wanted to be able to take them out from the Webtoon reality, yet still inside the Webtoon boundaries. One of the examples is how we explored their fashion styles. Their fashion sense is distinct from each other, aligned with their flavor representation. Maya represents peach, and Laras represents lemon. At the same time, their style are matched with their personalities in Webtoon, Maya who wears more modest and sweet looks, and Laras who is more experimental.

Maya’s Character Model Sheet

Laras’ Character Model Sheet

Maya’s Fashion Exploration

Laras’ Fashion Exploration

Character Assets Final Look

Storyboard

During the development of the animation, we had explored many different possibilities, including using a romantic couple, instead of two girlfriends. We also explored the possibility of boundaries of reality and fantasy land.

Storyboard V1: Radi-Maya (left), Storyboard V2: Maya-Laras (right)

At the end, we decided to set them into reality and change the setting into a more imaginative setting when they are experiencing the freshness of the product. The story tells about two young ladies who are striving to go through the days and finds the freshness of the product encourages them to seize the day. In this production, we created illustration style adjustments to depict fresh and bright better, since the Webtoon’s direction is more romantic and full of bokeh.

Background

In the animation, with a match between reality and imaginative setting, we used Blok M area in Jakarta, Indonesia as the reference, yet altered for exaggeration. Aside from photo reference, we also used sketches from scratch, even collage photos. The colors of the world in the video are also exaggerated and not according to reality.

Background Line Art Process

Background outdoor & indoor

Animation Process

We produced this animation using 2D frame-by-frame animation technique, because we feel that this direction suits each character well. The step started from storyboard and music, continued by rough animation (key frame & in between shots), and proceeded to clean up animation and coloring. The final steps of the visuals were compositing, which we set the time, frame rate, with minor edits; also visual effects. After the music and voiceover production, we added minor sound effects to enhance the feel.

Animation Process: Rough animation – Clean up – Coloring – Compositing

POSM Design & Merchandising

Added along with the animation, we also created point of sales materials and merchandising design. Initially, we were still using the previous visual direction of Zesty Fresh, but it turned out that we had the liberty to create a new visual direction that would be more relevant to the target audience. Then, we decided to scrap all real life assets (fruit & water splash), and focus on the direction used in the animation and what we love best: illustration.