We needed a Back-to-School campaign that could stand on its own without relying on a product sale to drive interest and site traffic. Drawing inspiration from the company's relationship with Aleph Objects in Longmont, Colorado, we started with the question, "If you could build any kind of robot, what would it do?"
And then we asked children.
Behind the Scenes:
Thus was born the 4th generation of our System76 robot family. These 4-Series robots, dubbed "ConceptoBots," are significantly less refined than their canonical successors as they represent the hardware Research & Development period the company was going through at the time. But that's another story...
Since this project was on a short timeline and—as is customary—a tight deadline, we partnered with Ben Flanagin, a 3D design engineer and friend of the company. I designed the forms of the robots by hand using modeling clay, he rendered, printed, and quality tested them with our in-house 3D printer.
I also had the pleasure of hiring and working with Nick Nazzaro, an illustrator whose work I adore and whose style was perfect for this project; he produced the backgrounds the children chose as the settings for their custom 2D robots (before we recreated them in 3D) and a friend of his produced the illustrated props. This was the contracted creative team I managed, but I say that only on technicality since "managing" highly skilled and fast-working talent is nearly effortless.
A sample of Nick's work, used for cross-promotional purposes. Check out Nick Nazzaro (also on Instagram).
One of the kids' finalized creations...
In my opinion, this campaign was one of the most inspirational projects we've done. Having worked closest with the kids, before meeting them and while working with them on their designs the day we had them in the office, Ben and I were certainly a little emotional watching their reactions. The biggest of thanks to StudioC3 for capturing the beautiful reveal of the 3D printers at work and the subsequent awe and excitement when the kids saw what they'd designed, in real life.
Then, on top of the production work that went into the event and video alone, the whole campaign doubled as another in our line of "DIY Weekend Projects," through which we educate our fans on the process of creating seemingly inaccessible tech projects. The 2015 DIY Holiday Lightshow was when I first settled on a papercraft-inspired vector illustration for the hero imagery, to emphasize the DIY/homemade approach. That aesthetic has been fun to reimagine for each of the three projects since, especially when figuring out if I can imbue a hero with a little stop motion animation...
View the projects on the System76 Showcase page or click the images below.
Click to see the projects!
