One foam finger, nine campuses.

The whole trip

Each film starts where the last one stopped.

The finger leaves the Charlie Hustle store in Kansas City and runs to Manhattan for K-State. The next week it picks up in Lincoln, then Iowa City, Ames, Champaign, Columbia, Fayetteville, Lawrence and Norman. Each film ends when the map turns that school's colours and the drop date lands.

The runner

A flat drawing, made into foam.

The mascot started as a one-line foam-finger drawing. In Cinema 4D I built it as a thick cut-out with a soft foam surface and a pair of cartoon legs, then rendered the run cycle and placed it on the maps in After Effects. Its shadow falls across the roads as it turns corners.

The maps

Real roads, drawn flat.

Each state is a flat vector map with its interstates, US routes and towns. In After Effects the map lies in 3D space under a moving camera that follows the runner down the highway, swings to the star on campus, and pushes in on the badge.

One stop · K-State · 8.19

Store to campus in six seconds.

The first film sets the pattern for the other eight. It opens on the Kansas City store badge and follows I-70 west to Manhattan. A star marks the campus, the map washes from cyan to purple, and the K-State badge drops in with the date.

Nine weeks

Nine dates, nine colourways.

• K-State 8.19
• Nebraska 8.26
• Iowa 9.2
• Iowa State 9.9
• Illinois 9.16
• Mizzou 9.23
• Arkansas 9.30
• Kansas 10.7
• Oklahoma 10.14

Delivery

Wide and square.

Each school got a 1920 × 1080 film for the site and a 1080 × 1080 cut for social, plus QuickTime masters. Each runs five to six seconds. The square cut is framed from the same camera move, so the runner and badge stay centred.

Getting there

Three weeks to the look.

The launch

One film for the landing page.

Before the first drop, an 18-second film introduced the roadshow on the brand's site. The finger runs across the whole region to the Charlie Hustle wordmark, the route links every campus, then the tees and the "College Roadshow" lockup close it out. I animated the map run and edited the film.