Pastiglie Leone – La Dolce Vita

YEAR 2024

CLIENT Pastiglie Leone

AGENCY Design Bridge and Partners

MY ROLE 3D Concept, LookDev, Physics Simulation, Mechanical Animation, Rendering

DURATION 5 Weeks

TOOLS Cinema 4D, X-Particles, After Effects, Illustrator, Photoshop

AWARDS Pentawards Platinum, FAB Awards Gold, The Drum Awards Gold, ADC Bronze Cube

CREATIVE LEADERSHIP Greg Quinton, Alessandro Foschini, Michael Stride, Chris Algar 

3D & ANIMATION Rodrigo Ortega, Gan Lin, Nina Marie Girod

2D MOTION & EDIT Benedetto Infantino, Abbi Chard

BRAND DESIGN James Green, Alessandra Paglialonga, Marta Cavallin, Nicolò Giacomin, Nick Goveia

STRATEGY Laura Eyles

PRODUCTION Julia Thompson 

CLIENT TEAM Liam McDermott, Tom Lamming, Alessia Viotti, Valentina Patti Pinelli, Mario De Luca

Bridging Heritage and Modernity Founded in Turin in 1857 by Luigi Leone, Pastiglie Leone stands as a cornerstone of Italian confectionery. Their unique candies—pastilles, jellies, gummy sweets, liquorice, and fine chocolates—are part of the fabric of life for every Italian growing up. Put simply, generations of ‘magical moments’ are contained in those pretty little boxes.

As Pastiglie Leone’s footprint expanded globally, the brand faced a pivotal challenge: limited international awareness and visual fragmentation across its vast portfolio. Design Bridge’s London studio partnered with Pastiglie Leone to engineer a comprehensive brand ecosystem—unifying their diverse product range while honoring the brand’s artisanal heritage to ensure its legacy for generations to come.

A World of Sensory Mechanical Wonder Before the motion phase began, the London design team spent over a year meticulously overhauling the brand visuals for the 160-year-old Italian icon——from redefining the logomark, typography, and iconic brand patterns to redesigning 50+ individual package labels.

I joined the team as the Motion Creative Director was developing the initial rough narrative. Tasked with visualizing the early raw production stages of the “Leone Factory”—from dough-making and cutting to the final filling of the boxes—I took full ownership of 10 of the 22 3D shots in the 2-minute film. Working across time zones from New York, I collaborated with the London studio to build a neo-Victorian, pastel-hued assembly line. The goal was to pivot away from cold industrial realism and toward a whimsical dream-state factory——a world of mechanical wonder inspired by the flat, cinematic style of Wes Anderson.

Neo-Victorian-Wes-Anderson To fully inhabit Pastiglie Leone’s DNA, I immersed myself in the brand’s history, ranging from archival factory photography and vintage packaging to the newly updated visual system. I spent a weekend evening renting out The Grand Budapest Hotel, studying its forced symmetry, flat composition, and distinctive color grading to capture the intended cinematic language.

By blending these visual principles with Pastiglie Leone’s pastel palette and intricate filigree, I developed custom structures, compositions, and animations unique to the brand’s new neo-Victorian aesthetic. Every interaction and choreographed movement felt intentional, satisfying, and whimsical. (We purposefully avoided the polychromatic maximalism of Willy Wonka’s factory.)

Building the Enigmatic Assembly Lines While the package models were already created by the London CGI Director before I joined the project, coming up with the mechanical world around them was entirely under my remit. Within a tight 5-week production window, I was responsible for:

• Mechanical Concepting: Designing and building the “enigmatic assembly lines” from scratch—ensuring every gear and belt felt Victorian yet modern.
• Rigging & Animation: Leveraging Cinema 4D’s Mograph tools to create a synchronized, rhythmic choreography, ensuring the sweets moved seamlessly through the “modular” stages of the factory.
• Lighting & Styleframes: Iterating on lighting setups to emphasize the soft, tactile textures of the packaging and candies against the high-end shimmer of the gold-foil accents.
• Cross-Atlantic Collaboration: Despite being the sole artist in the NY studio for the majority of the project, I maintained constant creative alignment via MS Teams with the London CCO, Creative Directors, designers, and editor to ensure the individual 3D scenes integrated perfectly into the final narrative.

A New Benchmark for the Agency The resulting film did more than launch a product—it established the definitive visual and motion language for Pastiglie Leone’s future.

• The Hero Piece: Since its debut, this project has remained the very first piece of the agency’s global portfolio for over 18 months.
• Industry Recognition: The campaign was a critical success, winning the 2024 Pentawards Platinum, FAB Awards Gold, The Drum Awards Gold, and an ADC Awards Bronze Cube. Notably, this project was a key contributor to Design Bridge and Partners being named Pentawards Design Agency of the Year 2024.

Multinational Release The animation served as the digital heartbeat for a rollout across 7,675 stores in Europe—from the Westin Palace Hotel in Milan to Le Fromager des Halles in Paris—with further expansion into Asia underway. While the design lived on the shelves, the motion work provided the stopping power and enticing character needed to introduce the world to Leone’s new era of indulgence.