Creating Paradise With Maxon One How TA\VO Studio created a showstopping brand for a new social club in Madrid.

Global agency TA\VO Studio was recently asked to build communication assets for Circus, a private social club located in the center of Madrid, Spain that’s described as a “private haven.” Impressed by TA\VO’s commitment to elegance and sophistication, Circus requested a fresh new concept for everything from logo creation to compelling motion design, as well as a brand identity that would align seamlessly with its chic business ethos.

The open brief the TA\VO team received was both straightforward yet intricate, asking them to building assets embodying the essence of Circus. Their creative task was to highlight the club as a place where endless possibilities for enjoyment unfold, establishing it a prestigious locale that caters to a discerning clientele.

After brainstorming from many different perspectives, they used Cinema 4D and Redshift to create beautiful, surrealist work that transcends conventional ideas of the “circus” concept. “We embraced the notion of this being a place where anything can happen,” says TA\VO Founder and Creative Director Tavo Ponce, explaining that their initial presentation drew inspiration from Dutch Renaissance painter El (Hieronymus Bosch) Bosco and his famous triptych, “The Garden of Earthly Delights.”

The goal being to build a hypnotic and aesthetically captivating experience at the club that would literally be a Garden of Earthly Delights, featuring surreal scenes of animals, plants, and everyday objects.

TA\VO also created a brand film that welcomes hotel guests at the venue, as well as large-scale wallpapers for eight luxurious rooms using silk paper on site to project the work on to ensure designs translated seamlessly into a stunning visual reality reminiscent of hand-painted masterpieces with delicate brushstroke finishes. 

As they do with every animation project, TA\VO’s team began by creating a mood board in C4D. But instead of moving on to storyboards to help define the shots and get a feel for the general aesthetic, they skipped that step because this project was so surreal and “a different beast,” Ponce recalls. Moving straight into creating the main videos, they used C4D and Redshift from the very first day, which worked well for the unusual and unexpected images they found. 

“We are not really fans of doing photorealistic work as our style is more in the realm of 3D illustration, meaning we play with many different textures and unique looks to achieve a specific aesthetic regardless of what it might look like in real life,” Ponce explains. That’s why Redshift is very useful for us. Even though our finishing is not photorealistic, it gives us a visual point of reference that is very close to that.”

Asked about the creation of eye-catching elements, like the flamingo in rippling water, Ponce recalls that the flamingo doesn’t move very much but did require intense texturing in Cinema 4D to get the right amount of detail. (Watch the process reel.)

Deformers were used for the rippling water effect “because we only use simulations when strictly necessary because C4D has such a wide repertoire of deformers that always give us good results.” Redshift was used for the flora and fauna “with a touch of post-production magic,” he continues.

“We appreciate that Circus place their trust in us, allowing us to breathe life into our work and bring soul and passion to the project,” Ponce says. “We enjoyed cultivating our most artistic side for the benefit of the client.”