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

Made in collaboration with the Obamas, Peter Ramsey, H.E.R and Netflix, “Active Citizenship” is the first episode in a Schoolhouse Rock-inspired musical anthology series from Chris Nee and Kenya Barris entitled We The People that aims to give a civics crash course to a nation that thinks the filibuster is a topping at Cinnabon. 

We The People

Made in collaboration with Spotify’s in-house creative team to concoct a series of fifteen stills and animated images to celebrate the panoply of musical genres you find on their platform. 

Spotify Premium

Snow White may be famous for conversing with animals and afternoon naps—but not so much entrepreneurial savvy. 

For a fresh spin on her story, we teamed up with Squarespace to craft her small business and bring Snow’s unique brand to life. 

SQSP Snow White

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.  

Shopify

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

Nike wanted to reach out to casual and aspiring runners for the launch of the Nike Winflo 8 shoe so we created a fun “How to Run” manual  to encourage people to get up and get out to find their inner runner. 

Nike Wind

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. 

Microsoft Hololens

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"

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. 

Facebook Messenger

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. 

The New Yorker Festival

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. 

Hulu

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.

Thorne

“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

BUCK Rebrand

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.

Sydney Water PSA Campaign

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.

Facebook 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. 


World War Zero

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.   

Google Pixel 4

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.

Starlight Spread The 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.

BBC2 

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.

F8 2019

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.

IBM 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.

Beyond Magic

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.  

Apple Power to the Pro

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)

Instagram Face Filters

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

Featured

BUCK Gallery

Give Us Our Flowers

RBG in RGB 

Holiday VR Party

Slapstick In-House App

BuckyWall

Slapchat

BUCK Holiday Gift

Quarantine-Zine 

Industry City Mural

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.

Stronger

Charity Water

Tony's Chocolonely 

DOH How's Your Head?

Humane Society

Apeel

Drink Up 

Changing The Game

MTV Elect This

Miracle of Morning

The Breathe Easies

Alcoholics Anonymous

Instagram Pride

Bill of Rights

Goodbooks

Department of Social Services

Facebook IWD

No Kid Hungry

Cliff Bar Family Foundation Seed Matters

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

SQSP Dracula

Twitter Cannes

Oculus Horizon

Verizon/NFL AR Experience

Snap Partner Summit

Hermès

Verizon Retail AR

Google Pixel Wall

NIKS 

Creative Technology

Pepsi Black

BBC2 Ident 2

Bankwest Campaign

Oculus 

Amazon Halo

Citrix

GoDaddy 

McDonald's Loyalty Rewards

Google Pixel 4a

Facebook AKA Portal

Facebook NPE

Airbnb India

Palm NFT

Sunbites Hail the Sun

Asana Brand Film

Viacom

Branding/Systems

Miniatures

AMP Awards Opening Film

TEDxSydney

Twin Peaks

Shroom

Immersive

AdAge A-List 2021

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

Research

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.  

The new Honda Civic is rev-happy and high tech and most of all just a pure joy to drive. 

When the job calls for product photography of the car commercial variety, we’re there to make it surprising and dynamic with fun, integrated graphics. 

Honda Apollo

Running a small business is hard enough without having to deal with over-complicated, time-consuming, and expensive insurance. That’s where NEXT comes in. And it was our job to tell their story. 

An animator’s dream job from start to finish — the characters, art direction, and storytelling were playful, and the good vibes on this direct to client job were 100% mutual. 

Next Insurance

We partnered with our friends at Wieden+Kennedy and Mayor McCheese to build a one-of-a-kind design and animation system for the rollout of McDonald's new Loyalty Rewards program. 

Verizon wanted to bring customers into the world of 5G and show off its benefits in a fun, playful way. We cooked up some interactive storytelling with WebAR and 8th Wall.

Made in collaboration with the Obamas, and Netflix, “We The People”  is another BUCK-designed episode and serves as the anthem for the Schoolhouse Rock-inspired musical anthology series from Chris Nee and Kenya Barris. 

In this episode, we bring Oscar-winning director Everett Downing Jr.’s story to life and set the visuals to Janelle Monae’s track “Stronger.”

Made in collaboration with the Obamas, and Netflix, “The Miracle of Morning” is the final episode in a Schoolhouse Rock-inspired musical anthology series from Chris Nee and Kenya Barris entitled We The People that aims to give a civics crash course to a nation that thinks the filibuster is a topping at Cinnabon. 

Made in collaboration with director Trisha Gum, the Obamas, and Netflix, “Bill of Rights” is another BUCK-designed episode in a Schoolhouse Rock-inspired musical anthology series from Chris Nee and Kenya Barris entitled We The People that aims to give a civics crash course to a nation that thinks the filibuster is a topping at Cinnabon. 

In 2021, Industry City invited BUCK to contribute to its mural arts program. We were eager to jump in and fill the void that a year without museums and galleries had left behind—and the result was this spiraling, multi-disciplinary AR mural. 

Asana, the collaborative workplace software, wanted to make their product more approachable. So we decided to be cheeky with the silo-ing that occurs between departments to help make their brand a bit more fun and relatable.  

Asana Silos

After years of research and several burned bridges, we’ve finally invented a way to give your boss the finger and not get fired.

Through a series of French propaganda and revolution-inspired posters, we delivered a fine ​​soupçon of illustrative social media delights for the spreaders of good taste, Grey Poupon. 

Warning: scroll no further on an empty stomach. 

Grey Poupon

This two-parter put our branding skills to the test, crafting two distinct brands that coexist under the same umbrella of shared sensibilities. 

First came the brand identity for Palm NFT (a joint venture between crypto juggernauts ConsenSys and art services firm Heni).Then came a visual branding system for Palm—a fast, efficient, and eco-friendly blockchain technology. 

A campaign for Instagram Pride to recapture the passionate resistance and vigor that started the Pride movement featuring emerging LGBTQUIA+ creators. We created a series of short animations, GIFs, and stills, each centered on a different IG creator. 