IBM — Partnerships
Role: Associate Creative Director, Art Direction, Design
Studio: BUCK
Client: IBM
BUCK was tasked with creating a wide array of imagery to accompany IBM’s messaging for each of their partnerships, across sport and entertainment. From graphic 2D vector illustrations and motion, to fully 3D representations — all designed to be used across a wide array of media and channels.
IBM brings its technologies, insights, and data expertise to every one of their partnerships. This sentiment was captured as ‘Partners in Progress’; a concept that brings IBM’s data-driven point of view together with specific themes and elements drawn from each of their partnerships, in a celebration of progress.
Part of the process was to distil everything into a set of conceptual and practical guidelines, enabling correct usage of the assets across many placements, and also to allow for future assets to be created cohesively.
Fantasy Football
Modular, customizable, and overtly game-like. Fantasy Football visualizes the control, customization, and decision making central to every fantasy player’s experience.
Maybe more than any other partnership, data is a core part of that experience; Fantasy Football is fundamentally about data driving choices: Making changes, customizing your approach, reacting and adapting to new outcomes.
The US Open
The US Open visuals strip away nearly all elements of the game, sharpening focus toward the iconic blue court of the US Open and the tennis ball itself.
Data becomes apparent through the trajectory of each stoke. Every shot, rally, game, set, and match is captured and can be visualized; overlaid and condensed in space and time into one sculptural moment. Balls travel on arcing threads of suspended data and we see instances of balls frozen in space at the point where they come into contact with an unseen racket.
The Masters
Players performances are recorded in sequence through instances of clubs, balls, and flag pins. Strokes mapped as a network of paths over the course. Every shot putted toward a single hole in order.
These sequences create understandable timelines and and the impression of richly organized performance and statistical data, rooted in the environment and equipment of the sport.
Wimbledon
Inspired by radial floral motifs, the sweeping arcs of racket strokes, and the overlapping photographic studies of Eadweard Muybridge, Wimbledon’s concept is centered around data drawn from the past and present, and the potential outcomes that data suggests.
Through overlapping sequential forms, snapshots of the past are captured and quantified, the present tracked, and potential predictions of future performance are made.
The GRAMMYs
Motion, pattern, light, and drama. The GRAMMYs brings IBM’s design sensibilities to the stage, establishing an active and reactive array of graphic shape, light, and sound waves.
Taking the main stage as inspiration, we bringing a sense of performance, drama, glamor and excitement to data the data behind the event through highly choreographed light, pattern, and motion inspired by sound.
Credits
Executive Creative Director
Ben Langsfeld
Group Creative Director
Jon Gorman
Executive Producer
Kitty Dillard
Creative Directors
Jon Gorman, Stevie Watkins
Associate Creative Directors
Doug Hindson, Emily Simms
Producer
Alexi Yeldezian
Production Coordinator
Jacklyn Reid Hemmings
Strategy
Tina Surelia
Art Direction
Doug Hindson, Guillermo Zapiola, Max Vogel
3D Leads
Taylor James, Will Burkart
2D Animation Lead
Sean Merk
Design
Berni Charadia, Codie Chang, Danni Xi, Heewon Kim, Hyung Soon Joo, Jose Flores, Max Vogel, Yukyung Lee
Concept Art
Arron Ingold, Doug Hindson
3D Design
Alex Kiesling, Duncan DeMichiel, Hannah Sun, Jesseter Wang, Michael Russo, Nachei Sanchez, Simon Rönnerdag, Victoria Kociman, Will Burkart
3D Modeling, Lighting & Animation
Duncan DeMichiel, Guillermo Zapiola, Hannah Sun, Jesseter Wang, Michael Russo, Taylor James, Will Burkart, Jacky Jackson
2D Animation
Hannah Sun, Meitar Almog, Paola Chen Li, Sean Merk, Taylor Griggs