Not your average white paper. Learn how we get down and dirty in the process of tinkering, crafting, and analyzing through purpose-driven experimentation. 

After nearly a year of seeing each other trapped in digital rectangles on countless video calls, we needed to kick off 2021 by doing something different. Something to reconnect us all.

Here was our idea:

Send 300 Oculus Quest VR headsets to all BUCK employees around the world. Then, organize a company-wide party in VR, complete with a live DJ, an art gallery, games, a keynote presentation, virtual cocktails, and fireworks. 

Oh, and build the world for that party from scratch.



Holiday VR Party

Shroom!

We put a Bucky-style braintrust together to try and develop the most elaborate, Byzantine way to like an Instagram post. We think we might have nailed it. 

Bucky Wall

An in-browser audio/visual experience that uses custom sound design and gamified interactions to reveal a trippy surprise in the end. Users play with a visual audioscape by using their keyboard like an instrument. 

Revisualizer

Question: How do we celebrate the launch of our new brand in the physical world? How can people touch it, and play with it? Start with a circle.

Rotator

For Arab-American Heritage Month, a small team of keen BUCKers took all the things that make this culture great and packed it into a bold, type-focused, and celebratory AR filter that is 100% certified Habibi. 

Arab-American Heritage Month

BUCK builds in-house AR effects to allow our designers and creative technologists to dream up filters and effects that are outside the constraints of our client’s briefs.

You’re going to go *oooooh* over our blue goo.



BUCK Ray Marching

Eye Patch WebGL

A project for Apple Music Korea through MAL for their Memoji campaign. The aesthetics were based on glitch graphics and visuals so we built tools to create an ownable effect specifically for this spot.

Moshing

We use the same technology that prevents self-driving cars from slamming into canyon walls painted to look like a tunnel in order to map physical environments for a more accurate AR experience. We love this. Coyotes (carnivorous vulgaris) of the obsessive, sociopathic variety do not. 


LIDAR Scan

An in-house app that paved the way for new AR abilities. Building Slapstick from the ground up in-house taught us a lot of valuable lessons, and continues to provide plenty of fodder for pushing virtual boundaries.

Slapstick

In celebration of the NFL’s 100th season, we collaborated with our pals at Momentum to deliver the speed and power of Verizon’s 5G network to fans around the league. We created a multi-player game with real time tracking on a super-sized throne for 10 select teams, bringing our complete toolkit to the project and utilizing everything from our UX crew to cel animation and 3D, to code.

Verizon/NFL AR Experience

Research

BUCK Gallery

RBG in RGB 

Slapstick In-House App

BuckyWall

BUCK Rebrand

Quarantine-Zine 

Women's Herstory Month

F5 Opening Titles

Buck

FPO: BUCK is dedicated to works for social good. This is a selection of recent projects that we hope made a difference.

Charity Water

Tony's Chocolonely 

DOH How's Your Head?

Humane Society

Apeel

Drink Up 

Changing The Game

MTV Elect This

Starlight Spread The Smile

Sydney Water PSA Campaign

The Breathe Easies

Alcoholics Anonymous

Goodbooks

Department of Social Services

Facebook IWD

No Kid Hungry

Cliff Bar Family Foundation Seed Matters

World War Zero

Social Good

Creative technology is a broadly interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary field combining computing, design, art and the humanities.

IBM More than the Score

Facebook Portal Launch

Facebook Dynamic Content Films

Oculus PAX AR

WebAR Poster

Facebook Messenger

Instagram Face Filters

Twitter Cannes

Oculus Horizon

Snap Partner Summit

Hermès

Google Pixel Wall

NIKS 

F8 2019

Creative Technology

Pepsi Black

Bankwest Campaign

BBC2 

Oculus 

Amazon Halo

Citrix

The New Yorker Festival

GoDaddy 

Google Pixel 4

Google Pixel 4a

Facebook AKA Portal

Hulu

IBM Design Language 

Facebook NPE

Shopify

Sunbites Hail the Sun

Asana Brand Film

Thorne

Facebook Alegria

Branding/Systems

Miniatures

Featured

AMP Awards Opening Film

Apple Power to the Pro

TEDxSydney

Beyond Magic

Twin Peaks

Microsoft Hololens

Shroom

Immersive

BUCK is a creative company that makes art, design and technology with you and for you.

Sometimes it’s the smallest victories that make the biggest difference.  

From script to render, BUCK crafted six charming short films for Mailchimp Presents, an entertainment platform celebrating the entrepreneurial spirit.

Mailchimp "All In a Day's Work"

The 2020 New Yorker Festival was virtual for the first time this year and we were given the honor of whipping up a design system worthy of this storied institution. This included an anthem film to kickoff the event as well as a graphics package used during the livestream. 

Hulu Featured

To all you quality-family time watching, cozy couples chilling, in-the-shower-streaming, multi-tasker meeting, or doing the dishes peeping, type people out there--Hulu’s got your back. 

Thorne, maker of health supplements and at-home testing kits, came to us for a brand film. They walked out with an entire motion system and an expansive toolkit that could carry them into the future.

“When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty but when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it’s wrong.”

- R. Buckminster Fuller

Otis Redding sang, “You don’t miss your water till your well runs dry.” Aint that the truth.  

We teamed up with Sydney Water and Host Havas to raise awareness about water wastage and encourage conservation and responsible use. Along with air, water is Earth’s most valuable resource. And we have to make sure our well never runs dry.

2020 has been rough on all of us. It’s hard to focus on tasks. It’s hard to focus, period. And if you’re a small business owner struggling to survive in the era of Covid, it can feel like quicksand. We partnered with R/GA to create an anthem film for Mailchimp that pays respect to the resilient small business owners who are out there fighting through this madness and trying to keep their heads above water. 

Mailchimp Momentum

When Wealthsimple challenged us to create a spot for their new Zero Fee Trade App we got inspired. The result is  this catchy, tongue-twisting ode to investing. The stock on this has gone way up since this went viral and started racking up millions of views. Just another 3.706 billion more views and we got Gangnam Style by the balls.

Wealth Simple Trade App

A new style guide, illustration and animation system for the entire Facebook ecosystem. There’s many imitators, but there’s only one Alegria.

World War Zero is an initiative spearheaded by Secretary John Kerry that brings people from all sectors and walks of life together to address the climate crisis. This coalition of unlikely allies breaks boundaries and crosses the political aisle to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. The future is watching. Let’s meet the challenge. 


We came groovin’ up slowly with monkey fingers, joo joo eyeballs and a slightly different approach to this Amazon Music spot. 

Amazon Beatles

What started as a simple design-exploration evolved into a comprehensive visual system for the Pixel 4 launch. Inspired by the Bauhaus school’s elegant modernism, Pixel 4 is an exercise in playful simplicity.   

A project packed with smiles for Starlight, a non-profit foundation whose mission is "To brighten the lives of seriously ill children and their families".

Our goal: To spread smiles through animated gifs and a film that shows the power of a simple smile.

TAXI asked us to help them redefine the iconic Canadian brand, and we were pumped to craft an exciting new direction over the course of this year-long campaign.

Canadian Tire 

A tale of grit, determination, teamwork, and anti-litter bugs.

Coke Sustainability

Partnering with Superunion on this historic network rebrand, we were tasked with bringing a new layer of narrative storytelling to a category of BBC content they coined Maverick.

In the winter of 2019, Sonos launched their first mobile, cordless, take-it-anywhere speaker. Sonos quality with total freedom of movement. Music around the campfire? Check. Watching movies on the back patio? Check. Podcasts in the shower? Check. Radio in the bathtub? What have you got, a death wish?!

Sonos

Facebook asked us to develop a graphics and animation package for their annual developers conference. We took their brand identity and created a motion language that would translate across every screen at the event.

IBM’s Design ethos advocates for partnerships and embraces dualities: Mankind and machine. Fixed and flexible. Natural and engineered. And now...IBM and BUCK.

Together with the IBM Design Team, we’ve produced an ongoing series of shorts that demonstrate the use, usefulness, and deeper thinking behind elements of their new design language.

Abra Abracadabra...BUCK designed and animated the opening title sequence and graphics package for David Blaine’s 2016 ABC special, “Beyond Magic,” and his subsequent live tour.

2016 Emmy Winner for Outstanding Motion Design.

Apple approached BUCK to create an art film with the theme of ‘power’ to promote their super-powerful, new iMac Pro. We met the challenge with a simple direction that went out to our entire corps of artists and designers: go BUCK wild. The result is this stunning ‘eyegasm’--a thrilling showcase for our in-house talent.  

Instagram wanted to get into the AR space as this exciting, new technology was breaking out. They fancied their own flashy, fun, and freaky effects but they didn’t know how to get in the game. 

That’s where we come in. (cracks knuckles)

Tinder is down for some casual fun and so are we! The result of our steamy hookup is a humorous spot which shifts the focus from the tech-driven app to our Darwianian need for human connection. For maximum tactility we use 3-D characters and practical sets. The result is a world you want to roll around in, in the buff.

Tinder Invention Of Together

BUCK Artist Spotlight

AGDA Awards

Design Institute of New Zealand Awards

BUCK x CommArts 

Speaking Engagement

@buck.u.back

How deep is your love?

Home

For most, time away from work is an opportunity to escape — to dismount the workspace and shoot straight to the beach, the trees, or the mountains. But for BUCK designer Pierre-Nicolas Riou, that meant trading in client calls for sabbatical time, and in the process conjuring up this hypnotic, beautifully crafted music video that captures the sometimes-dramatic effect of sudden change ↓

Pierre-Nicolas Riou 

In response to the very real concerns about the spread of COVID-19, we want to provide an update on the steps we are taking to ensure the health and safety of our staff and our community while remaining fully operational to serve new and existing clients.

BUCK is following the guidance of the World Health Organization (WHO), and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) on preventing the spread of the COVID-19 Virus.

Effective Monday March 16th, all staff in our US offices have moved into mandatory work from home environments. By Friday March 20th, our entire global workforce is working from home. A week ago, we had 3 offices. Now we have over 300. The era of the home office is here.

BUCK is a global company by nature and we were able to make the WFH transition with minimal disruption to our productivity. We moved quickly to implement the latest technology to remotely connect our artists to their office machines, we continue to use video conferencing and instant messaging technology extensively to remain in continuous contact with our clients and each other, and our team remains mindful to ensure the security and confidentiality required by our clients. We have pressure tested all of these systems with complete success.

COVID-19 is, undoubtedly, a challenging situation for us all, however we are committed to doing our part to help resolve this crisis. We promise to keep you updated on any new developments as they arise.

In the meantime, stay safe, #flattenthecurve, and for Pete’s sake, stop touching your face.

COVID-19 Announcement

Racial inequality is endemic in every aspect of American society, from healthcare and education to housing and employment. As our industry grapples with its own complicity in the problem, we, at BUCK, are looking inward. We recognize that the process of rooting out systemic racism within our industry must include substantive change and we must start with educating ourselves and scrutinizing our practices.

BUCK’s lack of diversity, especially in leadership, is a problem we need to rectify. Since our founding, we have relied on art schools and our jobs page as our main recruitment tools, but we realize now that those tools alone are inadequate. We are committed to enacting change in our recruiting, mentoring, and hiring practices.

Below are the immediate actions we are taking across our entire organization to fight racism and increase equality and diversity at BUCK.

Working with third-party partner Paradigm we are analyzing the makeup of our staff with a quantitative and qualitative study. We know that effective D&I programs require change at a structural and systemic level, and will use this data to understand where to focus, and how to prioritize our efforts. We will publish key findings in the coming weeks and will evaluate ourselves annually.

Gathering EEOC data on our staff in order to continuously monitor our diversity hiring and retention goals.

Unconscious Bias training for all global staff - Research indicates that compliance-oriented unconscious bias training doesn’t make a difference. Our third-party partners at Paradigm studied what really drives change, and designed a new approach that actually works. This training helps people understand how unconscious bias undermines diversity and inclusion, effective decision-making, collaboration, and management, and motivates them to engage in specific, effective behaviors that create more effective leaders, more productive teams, and a more inclusive organizational culture.

All employees will attend a harassment virtual training course designed to prevent employees from engaging in harassment and abusive conduct at work. With an emphasis on civility and bystander responsibility, we will educate BUCK staff on the laws prohibiting sexual harassment and the harassment of persons belonging to protected classes -- from gender to race to the disabled. For supervisory employees, we will train on properly and thoroughly investigating complaints of harassment, disciplining employees who have engaged in harassment, and protecting the employer from claims of harassment. 17 of our staff members including all of the executive team attended the 3% Conference, a two-day virtual conference dedicated to gender, age, and racial equality.

Ongoing diversity and inclusion education will occur consistently and indefinitely.

We created a committee with representation from BIPOC, women, and our LGBTQ+ community to create initiatives for the immediate future as well as a long-term strategy. We have committed a substantial budget to drive their efforts. Our collective goal is to create meaningful initiatives, ensuring anyone who works with BUCK feels confident knowing we will continuously hold space to listen while amplifying voices within our creative community.

In order to guarantee pay equality and equity, we scrutinized the salary and promotion rationale for every role in the organization, ensuring that every position has a clearly defined job description, salary band and growth strategy, and course-corrected any inconsistencies.

We developed a performance review system that allows all team members the ability to celebrate their achievements and define their growth opportunities.

We are implementing an anonymous feedback system for employees to safely, securely, and openly give feedback to management without fear, which is supported by our non-retaliation policy.

After a thorough audit of our company materials like the employee policies and procedures, we are revising to use more inclusive language including but not limited to how we refer to our caregivers.

We have designated gender-neutral bathrooms in our physical office spaces.

We are creating a system, facilitating and encouraging employees to set up internal representation groups.

The talent team is going to expand relationships with more schools throughout the US, including HBCUs, Hispanic-Serving Institutions, and local Community Colleges that have Design and Animation programs. We are connecting with Department Heads, Career Placement Offices, and Student Groups. We are also looking at a global strategy to establish new relationships with top schools throughout the world to ensure a diverse pipeline of candidates from all different cultures and backgrounds.

We are evaluating our current internship program at BUCK to see how we can be more inclusive and provide inspiration and opportunities to underrepresented artists. We will also be hosting portfolio reviews to lend support and advice on how to break into the industry.

We are partnering with social institutions that foster interdisciplinary innovation at the intersections of art, design, technology, Black culture, activism, environmentalism and sustainability. Our initial partnership will consist of equipment donations while we develop additional opportunities to help support the cause.

We are matching all employee and freelance donations to organizations that are fighting for the rights and protection of the Black community.

We are reviewing the procurement of all of our business needs with an effort to source products and services only from vendors who are more representative of BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and Womxn communities.

We have committed to an annual budget that will ensure every employee has ongoing education in diversity and inclusion. We do this in order to create an environment where everyone feels comfortable to be themselves, use their voice and their talent without hesitation, and all team members have equal opportunities to succeed.

This is only the beginning of what will be an ongoing effort to affect tangible changes in ourselves and our industry. We’re committed to this long term and will be transparent and accountable as we work to achieve these goals. We welcome feedback and ideas from anyone who would like to help us move forward.

Anti-Racist Action & Accountability at BUCK →

How do you host what was supposed to be an in-person Annual Partner Summit in the midst of a global pandemic? You shift to an AR enviroment and get BUCK to create a Snappy design system to make the whole thing feel like one cohesive whole.

Google released this budget-friendly version of their Pixel 4 on the heels of the flagship launch and asked us to helm the campaign. We created a general spot and three others to trumpet all the snazzy new features. 

BUCK couples with Facebook to help design and concept the features, the UX/UI, and develop the branding for a new mobile app that functions as a private digital space to create, save, and celebrate artifacts from your relationship. Focusing on strengthening a couple’s unique emotional connection, Tuned is a way to express your love, share your mood, exchange music, and build a digital scrapbook of all your special moments.

What if a strawberry lasted as long as a lemon? Woah. That would be magical, right? That’s, more or less, what the folks at Apeel are doing. Using nature on nature to increase resiliency, so that our fruits and veggies have a longer shelf life. Great for the planet and fresher for you.  

We’ve been building this beloved campaign for over a decade and it continues to evolve. This new body of work is done in a shorter format with a new lead-in but it’s still the same full-spectrum Sherwin-Williams paint chip world you love. 

Sherwin-Williams Color Portal

In the lead-up to their Annual Summit in 2021, Shopify asked us to create an illustration system based on their brand guidelines. We then animated almost two dozen of those illos in a sweet cinemagraph style to help tell the Shopify story in a brand film as the Iceman on the cake.  

GS&P came to us to make some sensational short films that capture the breadth of flavors and experience of drinking a Truly Hard Seltzer. 

We wanted to give this a visceral feel and communicate through a fun, visual language the refreshing, joyful vibes associated with Truly Hard Seltzer. 

Truly 

Mr. Peanut is back, baby. And he’s dropping the Planters Super Bowl Budget on ‘A Nut Above’ — a campaign to recognize and reward others for extraordinary acts.  

Planters

Squeeze into those lycra pants, slide into the saddle, clip in your cleats, and pay for a piccolo with a fist bump the next time you stop at the cafe. What started with Brenton the MAMIL (middle-aged man in lycra) quickly turned into a successful system including multiple deliveries across a range of platforms.

This ongoing portrait series honors the historic women who’ve influenced our lives and impacted our culture. BUCK artists illustrating the women who inspire them most—the rest is herstory.

We partnered with AJF in Melbourne to evolve a series of fun stories for Yoplait that saw a cunning crew of fruity creatures get in all sorts of mischief. 

Yoplait

60 seconds could change the world (of chocolate). This animated explainer shows why the time is now for a revolution in the cocoa farming industry. 

CLIENT: (coming to us the week before Thanksgiving) Hi. Can you design and execute a beautifully rendered, graphic novel-esque, cel animated, short film about the history of our company and deliver it before Christmas?
US: (casually filing nails and chewing on a long blade of grass) Is that it?

Airbnb 

This is a brand film for Square. But ultimately, it is a love letter to one of the most beloved and hardest hit industries of the last year: the service industry. 

Square

It’s hard for younguns to understand how different life was in the United States before she came along. When Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away in the fall of 2020, we created a microsite from the ground up to celebrate her life and trumpet her amazing accomplishments. 

As Microsoft is pivoting to industrial applications for its Hololens AR technology, they wanted to demonstrate their technological capabilities in a series of case studies. We came on board to transform what could have been dry explainer videos into some visually-exciting eye candy. 

Helping Microsoft 365 reach a new generation of creators. 

Microsoft 365

Meditation is rarely sold as a “fun” activity. It’s seriously serene. Intensely intentional. Right?  

Nope, not for Headspace and its millions of practitioners. Their mantra? Keep it simple. Keep it fun. So that’s exactly what we did for this spot. 


Headspace

To promote HBO’s adaptation of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ acclaimed memoir, “Between the World & Me,” BUCK condensed the author’s pride, grief, and empowerment into a potent trailer. 

Facebook Messenger asked us to create a 360 degree background and corresponding AR effect to promote mental health awareness for World Mental Health Day with the modest, yet crucial goal of getting people to slow it down and breathe. 
 
Whew....sometimes that’s easier said than done. 

When Citrix, the O.G. of inter-office communication, and Athletics in Brooklyn came to us to do a stake-in-the-ground launch film for their rebrand, we jumped at the opportunity. 