The Aixsponza crew in Munich merge multiple animation techniques into this silky spot for MINI’s 2020 Vision Urbanaut electric autonomous concept vehicle, part of a new campaign featuring the brand’s head of design Oliver Heilmer.

Aixsponza: “The MINI Vision Urbanaut embodies what a MINI might look like with a larger and more versatile interior than ever – but still with a minimal footprint.

“Creation of these animations started with an extensive graphical design phase where we developed the general look of the MINI Vision Urbanaut world. The goal was to create a world that is very stylized and abstract, playfully, and adaptable yet keeping a consistent style.

“For the illustrations of people, we created a 3D animatic version of everything we needed before going out and shooting people doing all moves. That footage was then taken as a base for hand drawing the illustration frames.

“Most of the shots were illustrated in 12.5 frames/second (on twos) for a proper hand-drawn look and also to save time. Shots with fast-moving action, like the ones featuring Skater Girl, had to be illustrated at a full 25 fps.”
 

Client: BMW Group
Head of Mini Design: Oliver Heilmer
Creative Director: Uta Bodenstein, Julia Obermeier, Till Jenninger
Project Team: Hannes Ziesler, Nicole Prinz, Raphael Jasinski
Head of Design Identity: Fabio Olivotti

Production: Aixsponza
Creative Director: Christian Tyroller
Producer: Julian Fischer
Art Director: Dominik Högn, Christian Scheck, Dennis Tiege
3D Artist: Paul Gröger, Stefan Voigt, Yannik Wenk, Matthias Zabiegly
Illustrator: Paul Grabowski, Laila Petersen
DOP: Bartek Latosinski
Styling: Clara Reuter, Charlotte Roser
Hair/MakeUp: Arno Humer, Anja Wenger El Sawaf
Set Design/SFX: Andreas Walther
VFX Set-Supervision: Matthias Zabiegly

Cast
Skater Girl: Nicole Adamczyk
Oliver Heilmer: himself

Music/SFX: Michael Fakesch @ designingsounds