Gaia,
botanical animation
for a sustainability campaign
Software Houdini 20+ / Octane
Deliverables 3 animated pieces
Agency BOU
Brand GAIA Finland
BOU asked me to create three animated flower pieces for GAIA's sustainability campaign, running across public transit screens throughout Finland. The brief had a specific tension to hold: natural, but with a hint of technology. All work within GAIA's color styleguide.
Each flower was built as a fully procedural system. The animations follow a simple cycle, the flowers breathe, open slowly, close. A light signal moves through the stems, triggering the bloom. The technology is present but quiet and felt.
The campaign
Three distinct botanical pieces, each built as a standalone animation with its own flower, palette, and movement quality. The brief asked for nature as the visual language of sustainability — the challenge was making that feel precise and considered rather than generic. Procedural construction meant each flower could bloom, turn, and breathe in ways that felt genuinely alive.
Multiple Flowers, one system
Each flower was built through my custom made procedural system geometry, petal configuration, growth animation, and material all generated from parameters rather than sculpted by hand. This approach meant the animation could be art directed at a high level: changing the bloom speed, petal count, or colour temperature required adjusting values, not rebuilding geometry.
Material and light
The material design needed to sit between botanical illustration and organic realism — recognisably floral, but with a clarity and stillness that suited a campaign context rather than a nature documentary. Lighting was kept simple and directional to let the geometry speak. Final rendering in Octane for the surface quality the materials required.
Let’s make something together.
Available for campaign work, look development, and brand collaboration. Based in the Netherlands, working across Western Europe and the United States.
info@stephanduq.com
+31 (0) 642481265