St Michel
No matter how big the campaign, director Owen Trevor Black instinctively gnaws his way straight to the sweet, delicious centre, and we were thrilled to join him in plunging headfirst through the core of this doughnut campaign for St Michel. The challenge for this whimsical project lay in sourcing stylistic imagery for each distinct historical era, ranging from prehistoric caves to ornate Victorian parlours, as well as undertaking some serious image compositing to bring those vivid worlds to life. We had to walk a delicate creative line throughout the design process, ensuring we captured the expansive magic of the scripts without overselling the concept or over-promising on the final production reality of the commercial.
We worked extremely hard to blend these disparate timelines, ancient eccentricities and fantastical figures into a single cohesive, comedic aesthetic. Every page required careful art direction to maintain that signature warmth, making use of the bold St Michel branding to inject a sense of playfulness, using vibrant orange to offset the more restrained, vintage colour-scape of our historical backdrops. Including rich, warm browns in our design palette also afforded a natural association with chocolate, maintaining a constant connection between the overarching concept and the delicious product itself, amplified by a fun, bespoke incorporation of the iconic Doonut motif right into our title typeface.
Developing this concept was a sweet treat for everyone, pairing absurd humour with refined design sensibility in every age of the treatment. The fantastic series of commercials the pitch helped to inspire are another sterling showcase of Owen’s affinity for imaginative concepts and narrative flair. It was a pleasure for our entire team to collaborate alongside him on this wildly entertaining creative endeavour, and we doubt we’ll soon get another project that so earnestly poses the question, “Who invented the doughnut?”