Mini – Jung von Matt

Together with Jung von Matt we helped finalise a very different kind of ad for Mini – exclusively for the swedish market. A newly purchased mini could now be delivered in person by the swedish actor Thorsten Flinck. Be careful though – the guy does not even have a driving licence! Press play and see how the final newspaper ad came together!

You can check out Thorsten Flinck as he takes over and actually directs the TV ad that he is about to star in himself. Enjoy!

PHOTO: Pekka Stålnacke
3D/CGI: Roger Sandberg
FINAL ARTWORK: Martin Dickins
PRODUCER: Axel Engström

SaveMyDay – Morris Pinewood

In order to reach the heights of our creativity (or to get the most bang for the buck as he puts it) Mattias Frodlund and Hanna Moe of Morris Pinewood came to us in the very early stages of the international launch of the new group buying site SaveMyDay.com, owned by Metro International.

Who said it was easy filming the new train SJ3000 in Sweden?

“Hi Tomas, It’s Lina Söderqvist here from King. We are closing for a holiday next week and I was wondering if you could help us with our client SJ (Swedish Railway Company). They need some help with a few projects while we are away.”

Karl-Fredrik von Hausswolff

Karl-Fredrik von Hausswolff, renowned for his fantastic pictures of cars, is to join Bsmart. Kalle has previously worked as a photographer at Agent Molly and most recently as Creative Director for the image agency Johnér. As one of Swedens top car photographers, Kalle has captured all the big car names behind his lens: Audi, VW, Volvo, Ferrari, Peugeot, Porsche, Ford, Mercedes, BMW, Aston Martin… you name it! Being a man of many talents, Kalle also creates great still lifes which you can see here.
Kalle will also be using his experience to develop our skills in 3D/CGI for car imagery.
Welcome to Bsmart, Kalle! We are looking forward to make the magic happen!

Leaseplan Forever

Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, London, Münich, Madrid, Atlanta, Chicago, Stockholm, Rome, Neuss, Geneva, Prague, Amsterdam (revisited), Brüssels (revisited) and return visits to Atlanta and Chicago scheduled for the near future. So what do these cities all have in common? Well, they have all been visited by the Bsmart photography team on behalf of Leaseplan: the world leading car leasing company. Here is a collection of our ‘Best of’ images from the numerous shoots throughout the years since 2005.

Impossible Realism

Bsmart presents its latest collaboration, this time with retoucher Erik Johansson. Erik is internationally renowned for his creative ideas and ‘impossible realism’ images. He has recently lectured at TED and discussed his work. Together with Erik’s unique style and Bsmart’s creative production possibilities we offer an exciting and flexible collaboration.

New images to relaunch successful ad campaign

As most things in life, two is better than one and that was the driving force behind this highly visual campaign by Fredrik Josefsson, AD at Åkestam Holst. The theme for the campaign was ‘A cup of coffee is seldom alone’ and together with Fredrik we created these twisty, twirly images using a whole mixture of our talents including photo, 3D and retouch. It gave us a lot of enjoyment making these lively and playful images and we hope you like them too – or should we say two.

PHOTO: Hans Carlén, Pekka Stålnacke & Petter Brandt
3D/CGI & RETOUCH: Frederik Tennholt & Johan Svensson
PRODUCER: Akram Janzi

Com Hem – King

PHOTO: Martin Brunn
RETOUCH: Andreas Lübeck
PRODUCER: Akram Janzi

7-Eleven – Peacock

PHOTO: Pekka Stålnacke
RETOUCH: Philip Cederman
PRODUCER: Axel Engström

Barbecue – South African style

Finally, it was time once again for a legendary Bsmart party. The theme for the evening was south african braai (barbecue) with traditional music. All very appropriate considering our new venture in Cape Town. Together with over 100 guests we wined and dined and made merry around the ping-pong table into the wee small hours. Check out the evenings snaps from the photo booth…

And here are some tidbits from the soundtrack to the party. Thank you everyone who showed up and made our evening special!

Bsmart opens its doors in Cape Town

Nine years ago I travelled to Cape Town to study the fantastic light and the beautiful locations that I had heard so much about. I was completely overwhelmed. Three years later I returned for a photo shoot for the book Tutti Frutti that I was planning with my friend Klas Lindstrand. Needless to say, I fell totally in love with South Africa once again. This new love together with a passion for visual imagery was the beginning of an idea for a new Bsmart venture. Commuting backwards and forwards to South Africa over the last few years has given me both time and experience to plan and prepare. Finally, this autumn we will be opening up a studio at Camps Bay i in the centre of Cape Town. All the services we offer in Stockholm will now be available there, on location. Cape Town is even in the same time zone as Stockholm! As well as photography, 3D/CGI and retouch we can help you find locations and local models and even take care of your whole production. Come and join us this winter in the south african sun!
Tomas Lestrup, CEO & Founder

Please contact tomas@bsmart.se for more details regarding our new services in Cape Town.

Mixing business with pleasure

This was the first time working with our new client, Kelly and Pling. Under the art direction of Måns Hermansson we set out to produce these images for an in-store campaign showing the Electrolux range of rod mixers and the marvels they can accomplish. This is minimalistic food photography at its best.

Kelly and Pling even wanted moving images to complete the stills on this project. This gave us the opportunity to work closely together with our friends at Snask Film. Using the same look and feel as the stills, Snask produced this beautiful, modern and stylish ad:

PHOTO: Hans Carlén
RETOUCH: Roger Sandberg
PRODUCER: Akram Janzi
FILM PRODUCTION & POST: Snask Film

Welcome to Bsmart!

Are you one of the curious types who never seems to find the time to take a trip to Bsmart to take a look at our magnificent studios and meet some of the various creative artists who reside within? Well, today’s your lucky day! Take a small tour and browse through a few pictures of our studios. Who knows, perhaps we’ll get the chance to meet you in person very soon? We can’t promise the same level of tidiness as our artistic pictures portray (on a normal day the studios are crammed full with studio props and numerous clients) but we can promise you a very, very warm welcome!

Spring/Summer 2011

Would you like to experience a visual collection of our latest projects without the need of an iMac or an iPad or an iPhone or an i anything? Do you long for the velvety feel of real paper to thumb through? Well, you can now order a printed version of our latest work. Right here!

My 8 favorites – Judit look-alikes

This is the latest instalment in the Com Hem campaign by the people at King. It carries on the spirit of the fictional twin characters Judit and Judit through eight different look-alikes to illustrate the variety of channels supplied by Com Hem. The original campaign, celebrating Com Hem’s 10th anniversary, premiered in 2009 and has been extremely popular, much due to Judit and Judit’s Youtube cameo.

PHOTO: Hans Carlén
RETOUCH: Anna Nordstedt
PRODUCER: Akram Janzi

Fazer – Identity Works

Geisha Harmony is a new product family under the Geisha brand which was first launched in 1962. The sophisticated packaging with watercolour illustrations was designed by Senior Designer Karin af Malmborg from Identity Works. For this mouthwatering project we carried out the retouch work, production design and final artworks.

RETOUCH: Anna Nordstedt & Martin Dickins
FINAL ARTWORK: Martin Dickins
PRODUCER: Bsmart

LOB design

LOB design are renowned for producing home accessories and table top articles in the latest Scandinavian design so we were more than happy to help create their latest catalogue for this Autumn/Winter 2011. Petra Östh was the stylist for the main images.

RETOUCH: Erik Hemmingson
DESIGN & FINAL ARTWORK: Martin Dickins
PRODUCER: Tomas Lestrup

150 years of clean water

Once again we have been entrusted by Emanuel Pinje and Torbjörn Olofsson from Carlsöö to supply images for Stockholm Vattens (Stockholm Water) yearly campaign. This year Stockholm is celebrating 150 years of tap water. Some people (mostly us proud swedes) like to think it is the cleanest tap water in the world. These wonderful views of Stockholms clear and crisp tap water are currently appearing as large format posters all over the city.

PHOTO: Pekka Stålnacke / Client
RETOUCH: Erik Hemmingson
PRODUCER: Akram Janzi

Part 2 of the DIY series – Pro Tips and Tricks

I often get asked the question if shooting food takes a lot of special skills and experience. Well, if you do the following… work with the best foodstylists and chefs, use the best and freshest ingredients, make sure you have a beautiful light, be careful with your composition and framing, use the best lenses and cameras, have access to the most talented retouch artists and some wonderful props and locations… then the answer is: Hell no! It’s a piece o’ cake!

PHOTO: Hans Carlén

Groundbreaking technology for the fashion minded

The renowned ad agency King was looking to design a clothing collection for a new campaign for Com Hem (a company usually associated with broadband). Early on in the process we agreed with King to carry out a 3D/photo production as this would be extremely effective and controllable, and would lead to a perfect result in terms of both esthetics and costs. For this exciting project Com Hem teamed up with fashion designer Sahara Widoff to create this years perhaps most futuristic collection made entirely from Com Hem’s flexible cables and accessories.

The truth unveiled

Together with the team from DDB, AD Jennie Arvenäs, Web Director Jeffrey Salomonsson and Producer Mattias Colden, we made this fascinating documentary revealing the secrets behind the making of some classic McDonalds, the BigMac, the Quarter Pounder, the McFeast… Tickets to Cannes already booked, for sure!

Photo: Hans Carlén
Assistants: Petter Brandt & Olle Kirchmeier
Producer: Akram Janzi

I am a Festis!

Believe it or not but Festis was originally launched under the brand name FEST-iS in 1961 and was Sweden’s first still orange drink. A lot of changes have been made since then and behind the latest modern and youthful design is AD Isabelle Dahlborg Lidström from No Picnic. For this project we modelled and created all of the images for this spring seasons many exiting tastes.

3D/CGI: Frederik Tennholt & Johan Svensson
PRODUCER: Akram Janzi

Talking Letters

In this digital age there is nothing that quite beats getting a personal letter through the post – unless of course it is a bill. This new and fun campaign for Posten was put together by Åkestam Holst’s AD Lars Holthe, PL Maria Ljung and designer Oscar Gardö. All you need is a computer and your voice – you do the talking, the computer does the writing and Posten delivers your letter.

PHOTO: Pekka Stålnacke
RETOUCH: Philip Cederman
FINAL ARTWORK: Martin Dickins
PRODUCER: Akram Janzi

Future Classics

NK was founded in 1902 and is Stockholm’s most famous luxury department store. This latest campaign is all about celebrating the past and the future by collecting previously sold goods to create an exhibition of NK classics. The future classics being this years NK spring collection. The team from Garbergs including Josephine Fahlstedt were the masterminds behind this project.

PHOTO: Hans Carlén
RETOUCH: Erik Hemmingson
PRODUCER: Akram Janzi

Products in harmony

Swissline is a swiss born company providing anti-aging products.The debrief from Swissline’s AD Lara Wyss was to find a creative solution that would reflect the qualities of the specific products. Our 3D artists, retouch artists and photographers sat down to brainstorm some ideas. Some were a little too modern and some were a little too advanced. The final idea and image though was a great success and resulted in an extremely satisfied client.

PHOTO: Pekka Stålnacke
3D/CGI & RETOUCH: Johan Svensson
PRODUCER: Tomas Lestrup

We really put our hearts into this one!

Our friends at Åkestam Holst, AD Annika Trangius and PL Agneta Oppenheim, briefed us on an idea for a series of ads, posters and leaflets for the drugstore chain ”Apotek Hjärtat” (Pharmacy Heart). Together with the Nobel prize gala florist Gunnar Kaj we took the ideas one step further for the Christmas campaign. For the following January campaign we teamed up with the talented stylist Malin Thorngren and we brought out the magic once again. Since then this theme has continued to evolve leading to new and fresh ideas. Always from the heart.

PHOTO: Hans Carlén
RETOUCH: Erik Hemmingson
PRODUCER: Akram Janzi

State-of-the-art skincare

Is this one of our 3D state-of-the-art splashes you may ask yourself? Nope, not this time. In fact its a mixture of photographed splashes retouched together to create this final image which reflects the precision, purity and quality that are synonymous with Switzerland and the Skincode brand.

PHOTO: Pekka Stålnacke
RETOUCH: Erik Hemmingson
PRODUCER: Akram Janzi

Two eggs and an Andy

We are extremely overjoyed at the success of Electrolux and Prime. They just don’t stop winning awards for the ‘Vac from the sea’ campaign. Last night they were awarded a gold and silver egg at the annual Swedish advertising awards as well as a prestigious Andy award from New York. It feels even better just knowing that the campaign is for a good cause.
Read more about the campaign here.

A big thank you to Prime for choosing Bsmart as your creative partner!

Front page news!

There was a very nice surprise waiting for us in the inbox this morning. One of our images is covering the front page of the Weekend Journal of The Wall Street Journal. This gives us a great reason to celebrate (as if we need one). So Kalle Gadd (Art Director at Razorfish), when you read this, come on over and join us for some champagne. Cheers!

PHOTO: Pekka Stålnacke
RETOUCH: Johan Svensson
PRODUCER: Tomas Lestrup