SPDR is an investment platform with a simple idea: rather than investing in a single brand, you invest in an entire industry. PlusOne had built a wonderfully playful visual universe for them over the years — intricate constructions of wooden blocks and mixed materials that had become instantly recognisable. The brief was to extend that world into a series of films, each one featuring a mechanism that would connect the names of famous brands within a given industry, before building up to reveal the three letters that represent it.

I came on board to support the team, but the project gradually pulled me in deeper — and I ended up conceptualising every film and designing each mechanism from scratch. At one point, to bridge the gap between idea and execution, I even animated some of the concepts in 3D myself, just to show the department what I had in mind. One of those projects where the boundaries of your role quietly disappear, and you just do what the work needs.