Jeff Koons' Guide to Transcendence

Created with Louis Vuitton

Louis Vuitton tasked VICE (GARAGE) with creating a suite of content that would seed awareness and engagement for the LV x Koons capsule collection throughout GARAGE’s O&O and on social.

Within the program, which was inclusive of a Virgil Abloh x Jeff Koons panel event as well as an exclusive themed dinner, Jeff Koons’ Guide To Transcendence was one of the more whimsical content pieces we created.

Koons believes that viewing art is an empowering and amplifying experience; one that allows people to transcend self-imposed limitations and parameters.

As he is one of the most expensive artists in the world, we were fascinated by this dichotomy. Inspired, we shot a film that visually unpacks his philosophy and creative journey.

Roles: Creative development and concept, art direction, director

Embracing the bizarro, colorfully tongue-in-cheek aesthetic inherent to Koons’ work, the film was less a profile piece than a trip through the artist’s psyche. We used sound effects, animated graphics, mega zooms and cutty transitions to lend both humor and topic-appropriate expansive energy to the narrative flow.

Click for below for video:

We launched the piece with social trailers formatted for Instagram and Facebook. The film premiered alongside GARAGE editorial.

FREE LANCE 

SS/2022 Campaign

This campaign  is a revitalization of iconic Parisian shoe brand, Free Lance, gone quieter in recent years. Shot in studio, in a surreal monochromatic space: undimensional and undefined, reminiscent of their earlier campaigns that challenged gravity and reality. Simple but transparent propping injects playfulness and distortion to each compositon — emblemmatic of possibility and Free Lance’s quirky energy.

Roles: Art Director, Co-producer

Credits
Client: Free Lance Paris
Brand Director of Communications: Valérie Chétrit
Brand Creative Director: Alfredo Piferi
Executive Producer: Dominik Tarabanski
Producer: Isioma Iyamah
Photographer: Dominik Tarabanski
Art Direction: Isioma Iyamah
Production Assistant: Inès Vallon
Production Assistant: Clemens Klenk
Set Design: Nicolas Mur
Stylist: Pascal Mihranian
Stylist Assistant: Sonia Hamzi
Makeup Artist: Carole Colombani
Hair Stylist: Sabrina Szinay
Talent: Jeanne Zheng

STUDS Loves New York

A 360º Campaign

2020 was a year that changed the world. It was a year that disrupted existing systems, exposed structural weaknesses and highlighted untenable societal injustices. At the same time, it was a year that invited reflection, strengthened connections, and pushed us to imagine better ways to nurture both ourselves and our communities.  

A year on, we’re seeing cities come to life again. Including ours. Fun is back, temporarily. Working with Studs on their summer campaign, our goal was to spotlight the iconic people and spaces who’ve helped keep New York City alive - and fed, specifically – and whose unique efforts have both created new community and sustained the old.

Campaign Overview

New York’s diverse food scene is undeniably tied to its identity. With food as the great connector, restaurants, cafes, delis and bodegas have long been places to gather community and be nourished, in more ways than one. Impact driven, this campaign was about giving back to the individuals and places that have fed us all.

With that in mind, Studs released charms and studs inspired by various iconic spaces, i.e. dumplings, coffee cups, pretzel carts, and pizza etc, for their summer collection.

Product sold out within days. And $15,000 of proceeds from sales went to Chinatown Love, a not-for-profit helping restaurants and local businesses get back on their feet.

Role: Creative direction, art direction, casting research and direction

Press: Refinery29, The Cut

Campaign components

Piercing Bus Tour
A multi-stop piercing bus tour making stops at our favorite local watering holes.

OOH
Wheat-paste series inclusive of on-location talent portraiture and still life imagery of hero SKUs.

Digital Storytelling
We extended the storytelling online via the O&O Studs website and social.

Partnerships
A 2-part partnership play encompassing UGC / influencer collaborations and donations to the Chinatown Love  not-for-profit.

STUDS Merch
Totes and more, designed by the STUDS’ in-house graphic designer.

Visual Direction

Action and spontaneity characterize New York. It’s a city of chance encounters, impromptu sidewalk meetings, errands and run-ins. stops. We integrated this texture into our visual language across still photography, audio and video assets.

Talent and jewelry were heroed in the midst of their local environments. We captured restaurant owners in action; models quasi-unposed, unpolished, cute, and authentic.

We used still-life to hero the collection: each piece was paired with the appropriate establishment or restaurant. For example, the coffee cup charm might live in the midst of spilled coffee, pastry crumbs, a lipstick stained napkin.

At such close quarters (the jewelry is small), the mis-en-scene leant towards more abstract and textural. Result: Tongue-in-cheek, a little messy, and always approachable. Examples below:

Credits
Client: STUDS, Producer: Ray Blackwood-Bloom, Photographer: Anna Ritsch, Prop Stylist: Javier Irigoyen, Creative Director: Isioma Iyamah

Defiant by Design

Created with JennAir

Design can be both a tool for change or for constraint. It dictates our day to day, and defines our past and present. Our future lies in evolving beyond tradition, unbound by rules. VICE and JennAir partnered to create Defiant by Design, a conceptual profile series that explored design thinking bound by nothing but one’s imagination.

Laddering back to JennAir’s Bound by Nothing campaign, the goal was to further establish the brand as a trailblazer against the backdrop of an inescapably bland and conservative luxury appliance marketplace.

The Approach

We created a video series around designers and creators who rebel against the familiar by orienting their work around exploration, defiance, and unique expressions of identity.

Each episode envisioned bold new futures through subversive creative processes and philosophies –– equipping viewers with the tools to reimagine the ways in which they live.

Role: Creative and art direction, casting, talent briefing, edit direction

Visual Language 

Working with a super talented team, we created films that tonally represented this act of rebellion -- colorful, daring, and vibrant. My creative partner at VICE (Emery Coopersmith) and I worked with the visionary director Christine Yuan to bring their stories to life, conceiving of a unique visual language for each character. 

Lexie, bread maker, would live in an earth toned, organic world; Sarah, in a laser shot, digital soundscape, and Lily; in a vegetation-filled, ethereal, sci-fi world. Sound design also played an important role here in immersing and transporting viewers. 

We launched with dark-post social trailers formatted for Instagram and Facebook. The series lives in a co-branded partner page that encompassed the entire program, including a panel discussion around women in design.