Wonder Vision is a creative production studio driven by design and obsessed with detail. Starting with powerful ideas, they solve content production challenges for some of the world’s most ambitious brands.
This week, we caught up with Managing Director James Elderton to learn more.
How was your company born and where are you based?
The business was founded by myself and Joe Thomas in 2010, having studied Product Design together at University. We enjoyed the final stages of the Product Design process, communicating the design intent through beautiful product CGIs - and saw an opportunity to start a company focused on Product CGI. Our Production Studio is in Henley-On-Thames and we have another office in Central London.
What was the biggest challenge to the growth of your company?
Since starting Wonder Vision, we’ve evolved our offering by hiring VFX artists from the film industry, to compliment our product design expertise. The big challenge has been finding creative artists who share our eye for detail and have the correct software skill set. We’re in a good place now but there’s definitely been learning opportunities along the way!
Which was the first huge success that you can remember?
There are two that come to mind. The first is working with Ferrari by Logic 3 back in 2011. We’d only been going for a year but it was great to land such a big brand. We delivered their full suite of Product CGIs in advance of product production, exploded product and turntable animations, their global e-commerce website, as well as producing and managing lifestyle photoshoots for campaigns that featured in Ferrari stores across the world - and we’re proud that the work still stands up today.
Shortly after, we started working with Triumph Motorcycles, helping them transition their online configurator and press imagery from photography to CGI. We’ve now worked with them for over 10 years on a range of bike launches and creative campaigns. Those couple of wins felt like a massive success that proved our offering was unique and in line with the ambitions we’d set as a business.
What’s the biggest opportunity for you and your company in the next year?
The big opportunities for us involve expansion in our specialised sectors and services, as well as growing the team with more talent that strengthens our offering. We continue to identify brands and agencies that compliment our specialisations, and the opportunities exist for us globally as we continue to expand our reach, particularly in the US market. It’s really about capitalising on the team and offering we’ve refined over the last couple of years and taking the next step as a business with growth.
Can you explain your team’s creative process? What makes it unique?
We have a full creative approach on our website - but one of USPs as a studio is that we use Houdini FX software, which allows us to create systems and tools that are art directable, empowering agencies and brands to make on-the-fly changes during the project. This gives creatives and marketers the flexibility to get things right as we work through the project and explore different creative ideas.
Given our Product Design background, we really understand design intent, so we make sure we digitise assets with an eye for detail, adding the tiny imperfections that make a product believable - which helps sell what we’re creating while at the same time using our film skills to push beyond reality in storytelling.
How does your team remain inspired and motivated?
We have a great culture in the studio of supporting each other, as well as sharing knowledge to help each artist develop their skill sets and capabilities. This empowers the whole team to do their best work and grow with the business. The range of clients we work with and the variety of types of projects we get to produce keeps things fresh, as every project brings on new challenges and learning opportunities.
How has COVID-19 affected your company?
We pivoted and adapted how we worked, becoming more niche and specialised in our offerings. We adopted hybrid working which has given us flexibility on where we source talent from, as we’re now able to collaborate with people that aren’t local to our offices in Henley and London. While we always prefer to use our in-house team, COVID has given us the ability to work with talent around the world.
Which agencies do you gain inspiration from? Do you have any heroes in the industry?
We’ve attended SIGGRAPH in America several times and draw real inspiration from the film industry, particularly how the same VFX tools we use in the advertising space are used to create huge film scenes. Compositing many layers of visual effects, handling large amounts of data, production pipeline management, to name a few. These are all challenges we face in our projects so it’s inspiring to see it done at companies like Disney, and we apply these approaches to the advertising content we create.
Namely we saw a breakdown on Toy Story 4 from Pixar about the breakdown of how they sourced and prepared materials for the film. They went to a specialist porcelain market and studied different materials there to see how it cracked and was glazed, then went on to create their own bespoke shaders to replicate those details in CGI.
What is one tip that you would give to other agencies looking to grow?
Become more niche and specialise in what you do, then make sure you shout about it loudly. Being everything to everyone can sometimes mean you’re nothing to noone, so we’ve found having a core specialism helps you stand out and grow.
How do you go about finding new clients/business? (Pitching, work with retainers, etc.)
It’s a real blend of creating marketing content that helps draw our audience to us, as well as feet on the ground business development like attending industry events, networking and outbound activities. We work with both agencies and brands direct, so a lot of our time finding new clients is targeted to those who we can showcase our offering to and partner with for business that aligns closely with our service offering.
What’s your one big hope for the future of the industry?
That human creativity remains at the heart of what we do. We always want to leverage the latest technologies, but the human touch should always be there.
Do you have any websites, books or resources that you would recommend?
For new starters in CGI, identify the software you’re interested in learning and then look at patreon.com. It’s such a good source of tutorials and inspiration that would help anyone getting into the industry, or even those who are veterans, develop their skills and knowledge.
