Our online commercial for Julius Marlow

They say you should invest in a good bed and a good pair of shoes, because if you’re not in one, you’re in the other. The only problem with that is several shoes favour fashion over function…

This is something Julius Marlow has addressed with its O2 Motion technology - an air pod in the heel that provides additional cushioning to traditionally uncomfortable dress shoes.

The Brand Collective approached Jumbla to showcase this new feature with a ‘deconstructed’ piece of animation and motion graphics.

Never judge a shoe by its cover

“We met the guys at the Brand Collective and instantly clicked creatively,” said Jumbla Creative Director Oz Smith. “We decided to mirror the visual vernacular of sporty footwear but with Julius Marlow’s more traditional shoe style.”

To begin with, the viewer is presented with terminology you’d expect from a sports shoe, such as ‘cushioned’ and ‘flexible.’ The individual elements of the shoe that support this claim are then imaginatively manufactured in front of the audience’s eyes.

Once these are pieced together to form the base of the shoe, the music steps up a notch to set-up the big reveal - this is actually a traditional dress shoe, wrapped in premium leather with a sporty yet comfortable underbelly.

The viewer doesn’t have to rely on marketing spiel about revolutionary new technology; they can see the shoe’s actual composition for themselves. This wouldn’t have been possible with any medium other than animation and motion graphics.

As soon as it's over, you’re left to contemplate whether you want to slip on a pair of shoes that constantly pinch your feet, or enjoy the suppleness of Julius Marlow’s O2 Motion technology, which looks as comfy as it undoubtedly feels.

Modelling and animating a shoe with photogrammetry

Not many people know how shoes are put together, but in order to execute this project, our team needed to understand and envision every little detail.

“We started by using photogrammetry to produce a rough model of the shoe and get its dimensions in 3D,” said Oz. “It was quite a large job for our in-house modeller Jess. She not only needed to model the shoe but also make each internal part, which would later be animated.

“Thankfully, we were given a lot of trust by the client, which really helped the process, especially the initial stages of R&D.”

Using our photogrammetry guide, the shoe was modelled and textured in 3DS Max. It was then animated in Cinema 4D using deformers, rendered with Octane, and composited in After Effects.

But for Oz, the real star of the show wasn’t this amalgamation of programs and techniques…

“The most impressive part was the modelling by Jess," he said. "She did an awesome job.”