Customer Spotlight: Zookeeper
Creative and digital design agencies often take the “anything, everything” approach to creative work. Not Zookeeper, whose focus on branded animation is instantly familiar from the first click on their site. Their videos, which embrace a distinctive style of bold colors, meticulous illustrations, and pop culture references (Goosebumps and pulp comic books, for example), are immediately entertaining and engaging, perfect for that Twitter, Facebook, or Youtube campaign. Their ability to marry both snappy copy and emotion-driven storytelling into a beautiful visual package has made them the choice for many of Los Angeles’ well-known studios, with their work coming to a smartphone (or television) near you. We sat down with Zookeeper’s founder, Dave Waite, and asked him a few questions about his agency.
How did Zookeeper come together?
After working as a creative writer at Nike on Niketown openings in the late 1990s, I started Zookeeper to provide copywriting services. We evolved in the mid-2000s to provide branding and interactive design services. We started doing motion design projects and animation about five years ago.
What is the main mission of your company?
Zookeeper is a creative studio focused on branded animation for short-form, “snackable” content. We’re on the cutting edge of technology at the moment, able to take audio and visual inputs to broadcast animation in real time, aka live.
If you could pick a dream partnership (with a person, dead or alive, or a brand), what would it be?
I love collecting Funko’s Pop characters. It would be super fun to create original animations to promote their brand and tell some compelling stories.
What’s the Zookeeper website aesthetic?
We wanted our new website to really reflect our personality and show our work in a fun way, but also display our process and how we create great work for clients. We’ve also really pushed the current web tech standards, like on our contact page, with animation that even works on mobile.
So, what’s next?
We’re working on a big project for a late-night comedian on animated shorts that will go on one of the big social media platforms later in the fall. It’s a major initiative for them that should get a lot of attention. We’re excited about where we are headed.