Imagine if your life was produced by web designers, with all their glitches, cliches and flaws. That’s the world brought to life in a guffaw-inducing spot for no-code web design platform Webflow.
“If Life Were Like Web Design,” by creative production company Where the Buffalo Roam, walks the viewer through a series of scenarios about how life would be different through a digital web design lens, like walking through a door and having it not work because of a pesky update. Or everyone dressing the same because of cookie-cutter design. Or poured coffee missing the cup because of bad alignment. You get the idea: everything being complicated because of over-engineering.
“It’s a spot for designers, but anyone who’s ever tried to make a website or use subpar software will get it,”director Brian L. Perkins said in a statement. “Bad software won’t let you do even the simplest things. It breaks your mind. If the real world operated like that you’d go crazy. So, the message is, you don’t have to live like this. Webflow removes the senseless obstacles, so smart people can make awesome things.”
Perkins and Where the Buffalo Roam worked with Webflow on a list of pain points its software resolves for designers and worked that into the script. The design was deliberately monochromatic and the special effects mimicked computer errors, while the actors balanced physicality with a restrained dry humor.
“We had a lot of fun on set with the cast and crew, as we kept trying to dial-in the perfect dry reactions to an office that is no longer obeying the rules of physics and common sense,” said Perkins.
CREDITS
Client: Webflow
VP Marketing: Ashley Brucker-Stepien
Director of Content & Communications: Mischa Vaughn
Director of Growth Marketing: Tim Dalrymple
Director of Design: David Hoang
Design Manager: Ryan Miyoshi
Production Company: Where the Buffalo Roam (WTBR)/Oakland, CA
Director/Writer: Brian L. Perkins
Executive Producer: Tim Pries
Producer: Emma Jubinski
Designer: Tuesday McGowan
Animator: Jake Pryor
Post Producer: Mike Schultz
Where shot: Half Moon Bay, CA
Post Production + Editorial Company: WTBR
Editor: Jonathan Flookes
VFX Company: WTBR
VFX Supervisor/Flame Artist: Simon Mowbray
Colorist: MFD
Music: APM
Sound Designer & Mixer: Blake Aaron Henderson