Celebrating Winter
Holidays with Maison
Duvé Chocolat
This project imagines a winter holiday campaign for Maison Duvé Chocolat, a fictional artisan brand inspired by the craftsmanship of Belgian chocolate makers. A cozy and charming story that reflects the brand’s love for artistry and handcrafted quality.
The result is a warm, story-driven animated campaign centered around five people, designed to bring festive joy across different platforms during the Christmas season.
Services
Concept
•
Illustration
•
Motion Design
•
Character Rigging
& Animation
The Story
As Christmas was approaching, it felt like the perfect time to create a passion project for a brand activation campaign. I wanted to combine my love for Belgian chocolate with the magic of the winter season.
Maison Duvé Chocolat is inspired by real artisan chocolate makers who take pride in their craftsmanship. They want to stand out with an ad that attracts chocolate lovers who appreciate aesthetically pleasing, entertaining content with a cozy atmosphere of the winter holidays. The campaign would also aim to communicate the brand’s values of artistry, creativity, charming playfulness, and of course a handcrafted quality.
Process
To develop a concept for the entire piece, I start every project with research, sketching, and style exploration. I was looking for modern, simple shapes with a touch of retro charm, like an old postcard. It had to feel cozy, festive, magical, and tell a small story.
I chose to show a journey of a chocolate box shown through different apartments of one house, and to highlight how much joy it brings to everyone. I drew inspiration from Advent calendars, which sometimes depict a house with windows that you can open to peek through and see what is behind.
I picked bright, contrasting colors to create a festive feel while keeping everything cohesive with a limited palette of yellows, reds, and blues.
Rough Sketch
Clean-up
Coloring
I drew the characters and surroundings in Procreate and then vectorized them for greater flexibility during animation. I then built rigs in Moho Pro for each character, creating digital bone structures that allow me to move them like puppets.
I animated each character based on classical animation principles, emphasizing their movements to clearly convey their emotions and to express the warmth and happiness of the whole scene. The style is fun and playful, with close attention to detail to make the movements fluid and believable, even within a 2D fantasy world.
Rigging
Animatic / Key poses
Animating
Timing
Physics / Follow through
End animation
Outcome
The outcome is a fun, charming, story-driven marketing campaign with assets that can be used across social media, the website, external and internal communication during the Christmas season.
The central piece of the campaign is an animated video that shows a little story through the windows of a house. Based on hand-drawn illustrations, it connects the brand with artisanal qualities and a cozy, festive atmosphere, immersing the viewer in the magic of Christmas.
