Buck agency handed me a creative challenge I love: “You’ve got an egg, you’ve got an octopus — draw us a funny little looping story.” Quick context: the new Google Pixel smartphone has an external screen that displays “Made You Look” animations, creating a direct interaction with whoever is being photographed to spark smiles and a moment of complicity.
The real challenge of this project? Making an octopus appear without scaring anyone. Because tentacles can tip pretty quickly into unsettling territory…
I joined the project when a few ideas had already been developed around an egg, and my job was to bring my own creative proposals from that starting point.
I developed the egg’s design with its expressive eyes, the miniature octopus, and a stripped-back underwater world. A peaceful egg sitting underwater with just the essentials: a strand of seaweed, a few rocks.
When the octopus appears with its little tentacles, the very rounded, endearing style was essential to transform what could have been unsettling into irresistibly cute. Finding the right balance took some work.
As I got into the project, I quickly identified that the suckers linked to “kisses” had enormous comic potential. Hence the idea of the little octopus rushing toward the screen and pressing its face against the glass.
To make the octopus truly irresistible, I imagined two tiny baby teeth: as unrealistic as it is fun. This completely off-kilter detail makes the whole situation even more absurd and endearing.
Here again, the constraint was to follow the idle-hint-surprise-reset structure, which I translate as: dead calm / slight ripple / tension / surprise / back to the initial state.
For the underwater world, the challenge was to evoke an aquatic environment with as few elements as possible. Efficiency first: universally understandable and perfectly legible on screen.
On the color side, Google’s brand universe lends itself perfectly to bold, contrasting tones. A few quick tests and the right colors fell naturally into place.
A few adjustments to the octopus design, and the concept was validated in a flash. This project was squarely in my area of expertise: creating emotion and humor with simple, effective visual elements.
This animation is among the content selected for the Google Pixel launch.
And the detail that makes me particularly proud: of the three animations developed across all the designers on the project, the two I contributed to made it into the final phone. A real testament to the strength of my creative proposals!
Buck team on this project:
Vincent Lammers – Executive Creative Director
Simon Buijs – Head of Design
Chance Woodward – Executive Producer
Ellen Turnill Montoya – Associate Creative Director
Bénédicte Gold-Dalg – Producer
