Parasol Island for Sony Ericsson

This new Sony Ericsson advert from Parasol Island directed by Steve Scott is a colorful romp through a buffet of typography and illustration styles. The imagery nods at record sleeves of yesteryear but in an aesthetic mode that is squarely in line with the trends du jour. It’s a fluid bit of eye candy that holds up to repeat viewings well.

Maybe it’s simply a ploy to distract consumers from the upcoming iPhone release, but there has been a veritable flood of mobile phone spots over the last few months. Most of them are forgettable edits of dramatically lit CG product shots paired with a litany of features. This Sony Ericsson spot definitely takes a different tack, but I wonder if it’ll stick. Time will tell.


Client – Sony Ericsson

Agency – Serviceplan Power of Sales
Agency Producer – Aisha Blackwell
Senior Art Director – Ryan McManus
Senior Copywriter – Niels van Hoek
Account – Diana Guender, Mikko Kromm

Animation Director – Steve Scott
Creative Director – Charles Bals
Producer – Philip Hansen, Viola Habermehl
AnimationSupervisor – Philip Hansen
MotionDesign: Heike Mauer, Christian Hoffmann, Till König, Rupert Maurer
3D – Johannes Albrecht, Jose Ortiz, Paul Dreisen, Tim Reischmann, Bardia Afchar
Design– Sebastian Onufszak, Steve Scott, Charles Bals

About the author

Justin Cone

/ justincone.com
Together with Carlos El Asmar, Justin co-founded Motionographer, F5 and The Motion Awards. He currently lives in Austin, Texas with is wife, son and fluffball of a dog. Before taking on Motionographer full-time, Justin worked in various capacities at Psyop, NBC-Universal, Apple, Adobe and SCAD.

17 Comments

D.Shaw

When is retro cool going to revert to being just retro?

Yussef

very cool!

it’s impressive to witness just how widely ed banger record’s last two justice videos have influenced the industry. the inspiration here – especially from the dvno video: https://motionographer.com/2008/03/03/new-justice-dvno/ – is pretty visible.

who knows if more cell phone ads will take on a playful retro aesthetic (Motorola comes to mind as a company that has already fully embraced this) but i don’t doubt that we’ll continue to see the colorful retro trend develop everywhere.

anonymouse

cause no one ever saw neon coming back, rite ??? for like 1.5 freaking years…
that shit has been all over the club for ages, having the budget to push it mainstream à la justice doesnt really make it new.

leBeat

that neon-style was already bad in the eighties …

Alex

Wow! Like this motion graphics clip. It’s quite bold to create such a spot for a commercial project.

tito

throwin all the mograph tricks in the book @ this spot..
alot of National/BNS type things in there…
i like the music track…fun stuff

daniel

This is SOOOOOOOO Justice.. or should i say So-me? LOL I’m pretty sure the inspiration came from the DVNO videoclip rather than actual 80’s logos…
I can imagine the producers saying to the design crew: i want something just like this ( show the DVNO video from Justice)…

nynex

I thought exactly the same thing

flagellum

yup. i worked on it. you’re absolutely right. i do think they changed it up enough though (including the psychedelic and hip-hop stuff)…

Fidel

Um. I think buck did this like 3 years ago… here

ballz

I wonder what Ladyton is going to think when they hear that and realize whomever wrote that track ripped the melody from “Seventeen”…

mrpeter

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Paulo

After reading some of the comments here i think some fellows suddenly became Art Critique experts.

Using as reference other motion works you will find that everything online has copied something.
Its sad to hear so many harsh comments about the production when few posting here have the ability to reproduce the techniques used in this spot.

No matter what you say abut it, it was a great execution, flawless animation work, perfect timing and in my humble opinion, a decent art direction. Could they had picked a different style? Maybe, but theres a difference on seeking the Unique style and reproducing some reference.
I believe theres a lot of frustration between some mographers. Looks like everyone is trying to show that is tired of what they see “ONLINE”. Its Neon, texture, ink, bla bla bla…All the same shit right? But what about stop talking and doing something you consider “new”? What about putting in context the CLIENT, the PRODUCT, the TARGET, the STUDIO…
Im pretty sure 90% of the guys who watched this think Parasol is from LA or NY…

Great work you guys from Parasol. It has been a pleasure to follow your evolution. I think the 80s room in your office had something to do with it.
keep it up.

Lilian

Well said, Paulo. I like this spot. And I think you’re absolutely right about people being overly critical when they have little knowledge of what the industry is really really like. When you do factor in Clients, Products, Target market, Studio, agency, bla bla bla…difficulty factor increases exponentially.

Well done Steve Scott. Well done, Parasol. Delicious work. I find it delightful that the really 80s stuff segues quite smoothly into more contemporary poppy youngstery styles. I think this is a hit with the target audience—late teens to early 20s consumers…and at the end of the day, that really matters too.

notoriginal

I don’t care what’s hip and cool but there is absolutely nothing original about it and it’s not even that well executed. It’s just a wild mix of old styles that don’t even work together, not graphical nor is there a concept or story line.

Pascal

I love it. It’s not easy to capture the 80ies style so convincingly and make it look cool in a certain way.

Pete

Parasol Island rips …
Buck did very similar work … watch the new Espaun256 reel and have a look at the shoe sequence …

https://www.espaun256.com/web/index.php?/project/reel-2008/

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