Burberry x Blankos Key Visuals

Overview

Blankos Block Party is a multiplayer game built by Mythical Games around digital vinyl toys. Every Blanko lives on a blockchain, so players genuinely own them and trade them in the game's own marketplace. The rare drops sell out.

In August 2021 Burberry became the first luxury brand to enter it, with its first NFT collection. Sharky B, a limited shark character wearing the TB Summer Monogram and drawn from the house's Animal Kingdom codes, plus a jetpack, armbands and pool shoes that any Blanko could wear.

My job was the hype. I art directed the key visuals that ran across the HYPEBEAST network, on articles and social, to build demand before the drop.

Approach

HYPEBEAST is known for streetsnaps, photographing real people in real places. So we made the Blankos characters look like they had been caught the same way.

We locked the 3D assets into real locations and shot them like street photography. A vinyl toy standing on an actual street, framed exactly as HYPEBEAST would frame a person. It made a virtual item feel like something you could hold, which is the whole proposition of the game.

Before launch we ran a teaser in dim lighting. Show less, and people lean in.

Outcomes

The drop sold out immediately.

Burberry then took the visuals for their own social channels and website. Assets made for a publisher's hype cycle became the luxury house's own brand imagery.

Read on HYPEBEAST

Credits

• Art Director: Erlen Masson
• 3D Artist: Lamine Dramé
• Senior Designer: Luke Brown