Case Study: Brave New Girl

After creating an animated book preview for her newest book Brave New Girl: How to be Fearless, we were commissioned by Lou Hamilton to devise an animation to convey her brand journey, culminating in a 45-second piece to add to the book preview.

What was the brief?

Lou wanted a visual narrative to recount her brand journey, and approached Salamandra.uk to bring this to life in an allegorical way, using her existing illustrations as a blueprint. 

We took Lou’s illustrations as our starting point.

In the 45-second animation, Brave New Girl, representing Lou’s brand (and alter ego) on various platforms, finds freedom when her children fly the nest, but then, feeling lonely, sends out messages to cheer herself up. Suddenly she finds herself surrounded by like-minded souls who lift her up, and together as a tribe they fly off to an exciting future. This reflects how Lou’s online Brave New You Apparel and the newly created Tribe membership club came into existence, further to Lou’s book publishing success.

What did Salamandra.uk create?

Taking Lou’s illustrations as our starting point, we set to work on bringing the idea to life visually by choosing a style that would compliment her delicate drawings with their powerful punch. Lou provided a storyboard showing how the animatic phase should be put together, mapping out the key scenes and transitions.

We picked a hand-drawn ‘boil’ effect style to support the original way the illustrations are created by Lou in her books and on social media. This frame-by-frame process is longer and more labour intensive, but renders just the right emotional intensity and storytelling needed for this subject.

Sound design was created by identifying the right complementary music and animating to its cadence. The subtle use of just the right sound effects completed the piece and helped to tug at the heartstrings, for a sweet and engaging piece that you want to watch again and again.

What was our favourite part?

Our favourite part was seeing Lou’s engaging illustrations having life breathed into them, and the fact that Lou loves the end short so much she is entering it into some film festivals!

"Turning the Brave New Girl brand into a living and breathing animation was a great idea, and will allow it to be shared on so many platforms," said our head honcho Christine. "The team loved working on Lou's strong, meaningful illustrations!"

What did the client think?

"I'm absolutely thrilled Salamandra.uk brought Brave New Girl to life," said Lou. "It made my heart glow!"