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Cityhome · 2024

A welcome film for everyone between cities.

Cityhome rents to people who move often — students, freelancers, anyone whose address keeps changing. They needed a 90-second welcome film that felt warm without being sentimental. We made it in 2D.

Client
Cityhome
Year
2024
Services
2D · Illustration · Direction
Role
Lead studio

Make moving feel like arriving, not transitioning.

The brief was a single moodboard of warm, soft Scandinavian illustration and one line: "we want it to feel like a hug from a stranger." Cityhome had real users with real stories — but a film made from real footage would have undermined the universal feeling they wanted.

Illustration was the answer; the trick was finding a visual language warm enough to land emotionally without slipping into cute.

Build a repeating cast and let the camera find them.

We designed six characters with different stories — a nurse on a night shift, a student halfway through a thesis, a couple just unpacking — and let the camera move through six interconnected scenes in one continuous take. Cityhome's brand colours did the heavy lifting; we stayed close to their existing palette and just added warmth.

01
Character & world
Designed six characters and their interiors, all keyed to fit a single colour script.
02
Animation
One continuous camera move across six environments, frame by frame. Roughly 2,100 illustrated frames.
03
Sound & type
Custom score by a Lagos-based composer; type animation kept minimal to let the illustration breathe.
"It does the job a thousand testimonials couldn't. People watch it and immediately know what we're for." — Cityhome, head of brand

The film became Cityhome's homepage.

Cityhome made the film their homepage hero — and saw a meaningful lift in time-on-site and applications-per-visitor within the first month. It's still running.

+47%
Increase in time-on-site after the film went live
2.4M
Views across YouTube, Instagram and TikTok
+28%
Lift in qualified applications per visit
— Next project Product launch

Orillo