Expressie
Campaign
Essie has established itself as a class leader in the nail category, known for its quality and obsession with color. The brand is now expanding its user base with the Expressie collection, which appeals to a younger audience with a range of modern shades and an exceptionally fast dry time for people on the go.
Client
As the Art Director on this project I was tasked with bringing the user to life in this campaign and creating a story that conveys a fast paced lifestyle while selling the key functions of this polish: a fast dry time and a brush designed for easy application with both hands.
My Role
✦ Ideation
✦ Moodboards/mockups
✦ Casting
✦ Styling
✦ Story Boards
✦ Location scouting
✦ Shooting
✦ Editing
✦ Retouching
I worked on
Agency
Gotham
Sk8 with Destiny
collection
The colors and shade names in this collection were inspired by Skate culture and we were tasked with casting a semi pro skater into the film and KV.
I don’t skate.
So for me to work on this project it was important that I became immersed in the culture, learning the names of tricks, the camera angles, photo style, wardrobe, and facial expressions. Getting any of these details wrong would make the ad feel inauthentic. I went to publications like Thrasher magazine to get a sense of the styling and I looked at youtube to see how and where skaters film themselves.
With a better understanding of how skaters create content I put together a moodboard showing the kind of color and movement we want in the key visual. It was also important to consider the hand placement, knowing we had to feature the product.
We cast Essie’s first principal male model.
Trends show that more men, particularly in the skate community, are embracing self-expression through nail color. We designed this collection to reflect the modern, diverse nail polish user.
Photography by
Kenneth Cappello
Final Key Visual
Additional Key Visuals
Expressie :15
The full 15 second video weaved together the stories of the three principal talents, we intentionally used multiple cuts of each scene and plenty of different camera angles to edit together a film that feels very speedy and modern.
