Instead of following a conventional advertising campaign approach, Vans committed their resources to support the physical act of creativity itself, empowering artists to bring their ideas to life in the vast forms that art can play. Unveiled as a digital hub of art projects, Vans’ new ‘These Projects Are Ads for Creativity’ brand campaign is an inspiring journey of discovery — while the website serves as a capsule of creativity that will continue to expand all year-long.
The artist-first brand campaign showcases creativity in its purest form. Through enabling Vans’ family of artists and creatives to go out and make things — drawings, sculptures, music videos, custom shoes, digital animations and much more — Vans continues to celebrate the diversity of creativity itself and honours the talented individuals behind the work.
Inviting fans to discover new forms of creativity, Vans puts the artist and their stories at the forefront. Whether it is San Francisco-based Rewina Beshue’s colourful paintings that explore themes of time, space and reality; Annabell Lee’s vibrant painted pillows that parallel her bold personality; Los Angeles photographer Anthony Acosta’s DIY darkroom process or Hong Kong’s Start From Zero’s disciplined woodworking practice – these artists convey a breadth of creative interpretations that represent a beloved global artist community. It is through their physical tokens of art presented together that a collective beacon of creativity is manifested.
Representing things from the EMEA market are London-based artists Alex Jenkins and Eloise Dörr. An illustrator and cartoonist, Jenkins’ work often explores critical subject matter filtered through a colourful and satirical lens. For this project, he brought one of his characters to life as a 1.8m (6 foot) tall fibreglass sculpture. Dörr is a skateboarder and artist whose work often features skateboarding characters — sometimes big, sometimes small, and sometimes somewhere in the middle. For her project, she chose to create a triptych of painted skateboards.
‘Instead of creating advertising that talks about creativity, we wanted to use this campaign as a vehicle to showcase true, physical creativity in all of its forms. So we simply enabled creatives all over the world to make things,’ said Rob Teague, Vans global executive creative director. ‘Drawings, paintings, music, sculptures, video edits, skate spots, crazy animations, weird surfboards, and things we didn’t expect. In place of traditional ads, we as a brand wanted to get out of the way and support a diverse range of people, and their different creative outputs. That’s what Vans is all about – to not just talk about creative expression, but to actively champion it through our products, platforms and campaigns.’
This ongoing creative journey will live on the Vans website all year long, cultivating a digital hub of global projects that will uplift various artist stories and inspire fans to create their own version of creativity in its purest form.
VANS
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