Pixel x Paper x Press - Discover how we worked with Chaos to unite digital and physical.
In 2019, Foilco, the suppliers of the world’s largest range of stamping foil shades and finishes came to us looking to create digital renders of their entire collection. Notoriously difficult to photograph, and recreate, the Foilco team felt that nothing was doing justice to how their foils looked digitally.
While discussing this, it became clear the main obstacle to overcome was the intricacies of the foils and how to accurately replicate these using traditional material creation methods. Recreating foils is something that we have done successfully for years, but capturing the textures, depth and unique reaction to light of each foil, would be incredibly labour intensive and still potentially not capture the true appearance of the foil. To add to this complexity, Foilco also had a range of holographic foils which needed to be digitally replicated, and the only way to do this was to collaborate with one of the biggest and most diverse software providers in the 3D visualisation game - Chaos.
After pitching the idea, the Chaos team were on board and in 2020 the first foils were scanned – initially with varying results. As time went on though, the team persevered and the project became a springboard for them to develop their hardware and their scanning procedures to produce the perfect digital replicas of the foils. With these replicas, we could then work our magic on the renders, creating a series of over 500 swatches for Foilco’s much-anticipated digital catalogue.
Shortly after the hugely successful launch of the Foilco digital range, we learned that cover material specialists Winter & Company had also been working with Chaos to digitise their portfolio of materials, having previously relied on traditional photography and film to showcase these. With both companies firmly rooted in press and print processes, yet having the foresight to see the opportunity within the digital space for designers to specify and visualise packaging using their state of the art assets, the Pixel x Paper x Press collaboration was born.
Working with Winter & Company, Chaos, and Foilco, we set about developing a launch that truly expressed just how game-changing the Chaos Scan software could be for design teams. In May ’22 in Shoreditch, the Pixel x Paper x Press project was unveiled, with keynote talks from the four companies involved. Presentations of exactly how this mammoth task was undertaken and details how it would benefit designers and agencies were the key take aways. We also developed a launch reel for the event, and even developed AR and animated content that featured the Chaos Scans. This was an extension to the original Thought project created for the Foilco launch, featuring some standout packaging design from D8 and Porter Packaging that highlighted just how much difference the Chaos Scans will make to product visualisations moving forward.
Our work for this project can now be found on the main Chaos Scans web page – and you can view videos on the launch event, Thought project and Pixel x Paper x Press project on our Vimeo channel.
