Beautiful design is at the heart of the Squarespace brand, and so its ads must have a high aesthetic value as well. For this latest round, the website maker again calls on ad agency SpecialGuest, which this time showed up with a Phantom Flex4K camera and a plan to really slow things down.
The result is three new spots, directed by 1stAveMachine's Tim Brown, that capture objects from real customers' businesses in super slow motion—as they ultimately resolve as beautiful still images on Squarespace pages.
The tagline is, "Build It Beautiful."
The selected Squarespace customers worked with SpecialGuest and the client team to show how the platform allowed them to create state-of-the-art online identities—presented here with what the brand calls "the aesthetic purity of motion."
"The campaign is a truly collaborative effort, working with these businesses to properly convey the passion and energy behind the Squarespace community," says SpecialGuest creative director Aaron Duffy. "That's part of what makes Squarespace great, both as a creative partner and as a platform: ultimately Squarespace is about more than just building websites. It's also about helping to support and empower its community."
As the moving images become static ones on the website, a voice says, "Isn't it beautiful when things just come together?"—in which ad watchers will surely hear an echo of the famous Honda "Cog" spot, which used the line, "Isn't it nice when things just work?"
More spots and credits below.
CREDITS
Client: Squarespace
David Lee: Chief Creative Officer
Ness Higson: Creative Director
Jenn Grossman: Creative Partnerships
Donovan Mafnas: Designer
Luis Gonzalez: Designer
Michelle Liv: Designer
Creative Partner: SpecialGuest
Partner/ECD: Aaron Duffy
Business Director: Ashley McGee
Creative Director: Jonathan Emmerling
Producer: Barry Gilbert
Sr. Art Director: Morgan Harary
Jr. Art Director: Eddy Choi
Creative Development: Chloe Corner
Production Co: 1stAveMachine
Partner/Executive Producer: Sam Penfield
Director: Tim Brown
Head of Production: Lisanne McDonald
Visual Effects Supervisor: John Loughlin
Line Producer: Alec Sash
Director of Photography: Martin Ahlgren
Still Photographer: Dylan Griffin
Production Designer: Clement Price-Thomas
Editors: Karl Amdal, Jonathan Vitagliano
Compositors: Michael Glen, Joseph Pistono, Gerald Mark Soto
Color Grading: Seth Ricart @Ricart & Co
Sound Design: Joseph Fraioli
Music Supervision: Brienne Rose @ NoiseRacket
Audio Mix: Gramercy Post
Music Composition: Apothecary: Sofia Hultquist / Greater Goods: M. Colton / Yield: Adam Arcuragi + Jonny Diina