The Client and Their Brief
Michelin engaged Beep! Agency to help with the European launch of their new Beam wiper blades. They came to us to create product photography that would elevate a fairly functional product and give it more visual presence.
The art direction went through a few changes before settling on the idea of heroing the wipers, suspended in a blue void. We needed to shoot a range of angles of the full wiper, alongside detailed close-up images.
What We Did
The product photography was a big part of the launch, so we wanted to push the images beyond straightforward product photography and make the wipers feel almost sculptural.
We also had a long shot list to work through, so we brought in our old friend Andy Cahill as a lighting gaffer to add some firepower on set.
The blades were predominantly lit by bouncing hard light off mirrors. This gave us precise control over the highlights and helped define the form of both the matte rubber and shiny plastics.
Rigging the wipers so they could appear suspended in the air was delicate. We needed to keep the support hidden without obscuring too much of the product, while also making sure the blades stayed completely still once they were framed.
This approach also helped highlight one of the product’s key features: its curved, flexible design. We wanted the photography to make that engineering and flexibility visible, rather than simply showing the wiper as a functional component.
There were plenty of conversations around the mood of the background and how much colour we should allow into the images. The darker tones gave the product presence, while the blue provided an obvious nod to Michelin’s brand colour.
How It Looks
The Results
A set of product images created for an international brand and a European product launch.
Wiper blades are functional products that spend most of their lives unnoticed on a car. Our job was to make them anything but.
By treating the blades as sculptural objects and carefully controlling the light, we created imagery that gave a fairly utilitarian product a strong visual presence.
Need product photography with a little more presence?
If you have a product that needs to stand out, we’d be happy to talk through the brief.
