Shopify Summit 2022

The visuals for this year’s summit supported a story about “Nonna”, an Italian grandmother who uses Shopify to give her rural olive oil company global prestige. To capture the essence of Nonna and Shopify’s story, the visual elements were rooted in the fluidity and colors of olive oil. These central elements were backed by luscious representations of Italian landscapes filled with soft gradients and plumy shapes.

We found a happy medium between abstraction and representation, sculpting forms and visual symbolism in a unique process that we really enjoyed.

The summit was primarily focused on the documentary film, so we borrowed similar filmic traits to develop an aesthetic that departed from the style of the 2021 summit. By utilizing depth of field and set-like lighting, we were able to illuminate key elements of each scene.

Traditionally, we generate completed sequences of animation based off of a locked script or piece of music. But for Shopify we were working from a series of key images and story beats as the main ingredients for the animated cinemagraphs. Giving the illustrations a subtle stroke of motion meant the client had animated footage to work into their edit.