When Mister Dips, a specialty ice cream and burger joint, expanded their locations they wanted to provide a unique experience for their customers. They built a 4K video wall display and a 3x HD menu display, sweeeeet! But what to fill the screens with? Enter me, contracted as a creative and technical production partner to execute content to spec.
We started with a couple rounds of creative proposals (some preliminary ideas seen below) until we had it all ironed out. There were to be 4 categories of content for the video wall…character animation, stop-motion animation, abstract animations, and animated stills. In addition to the video wall the restaurants needed menus in two different aspect ratios for build-outs in both the NYC’s Seaport and Detroit.
In the end a 15min video of original 4K content was created and plays daily for all the hungry customers waiting in line for the next tasty treat. Enjoy!
For the character animation aspect of the project we were given few assets to work with, mainly the initial branding illustration files. With those as reference we built the characters Mr. Dips, Waffle Fry, & Burger to be animated in the different scenarios we came up with.
Mr. Dips jumping on a trampoline cheeseburger, Waffle Fry moonwalking into a Mr. Dips disco of waffle fries, playing frisbee with an actual waffle fry on the beach, and jet-packing in outer space to make the dips the magic that they are.
For the stop-motion animation category the food photographer supplied us with the animation sequences. As they photographed the stills of each menu item they also created these fun animations. Lots of 360 degree rotations, burgers getting constructed, burgers getting eaten, sauces getting poured on waffle fries and chicken, ice cream getting stacked scoop by scoop, all really fun stuff. From there we ran wild, from making it rain waffle fries to chattering teeth chomping down a burger.
Abstract animations were a nice option to step away from the food photography menu items for a bit and play with the brand assets. The balloon-letter and heavy metal fonts they use in logotype treatments screamed to be animated.
In the restaurants they have real neon Mr. Dips so we created a digital version. Lastly we took inspiration from the classic children’s toy LiteBrite to build out some additional branding. I heart Dips seemed like the perfect backdrop for customer selfies.
The food photographer supplied us with all the menu items they photographed. With those in hand we grabbed a few of the stills that hadn’t been featured in any of the other animated content.
From their frosty beverage and impossible burger recreated as a old-school slide puzzle to their shakes animating simply with playful ingredients surrounding them.
Another fun thing we did for the animated stills category was design and animate a template for the Signature Cone Of The Month.
Each month at Mister Dips a new theme-flavored ice cream is introduced. For example, the cone for April is Carrot Top to tie in with Easter.
Nothing beats the real thing! Get on over to your closest Mister Dips for the full experience and mouth-watering eats.
