// Project.Mind Ordering
My Role
Objectively one of the coolest projects I’ve ever gotten to work on. We worked with Domino’s and Netflix on a collaboration between Domino’s and the launch of Season 4 of Stranger Things. The project was centered around our concept of creating a a co-branded ordering app where you can order pizza using only your mind, as if you were Eleven. While that was the central element on the co-brand, we executed a full 360 campaign around the idea that included a limited edition pizza box, a themed landing page, multiple TV spots using some of the show’s real actors, a full sweep of assets on Dominos.com, app-store preview images, and more.
I played a large role in the project, mainly in the areas that shaped the look and feel of the campaign, from the primary campaign lockup to the co-branded pizza box. I’ll walk through some of those elements in detail below.
I played a large role in the project, mainly in the areas that shaped the look and feel of the campaign, from the primary campaign lockup to the co-branded pizza box. I’ll walk through some of those elements in detail below.
Project stats
1.7 Million
Landing Page Visits
300 Million+
Boxes Printed
802 Million
Earned Media Impressions
// Mind Ordering.Campaign Identity
The first role I played in this campaign was what the main lockup would look like. Because Stranger Things takes place in the 80’s, it only made sense to bring Domino’s back to the same time period. I leveraged the old Domino’s square logo (and thankfully got the approval of Domino’s legal team), and melded it with the iconic, Benguiat-based Stranger Things typographic style. Then I illustrated a brain to tie in the mind ordering component of the campaign.
A flat-color lockup didn’t feel right for this campaign though. So the next step was to take it into Photoshop and explore effects that would match the tone of the campaign. I landed on this neon effect that interacts with fluctuation smoke and passing dust particles, eventually bringing it into After Effects and creating the below animation.
So to me it means viewing design holistically instead of through a single lens, and having the skills necessary to design across mediums that, in the professional world, are typically siloed. Check out the capabilities to see the areas I can cover.
A flat-color lockup didn’t feel right for this campaign though. So the next step was to take it into Photoshop and explore effects that would match the tone of the campaign. I landed on this neon effect that interacts with fluctuation smoke and passing dust particles, eventually bringing it into After Effects and creating the below animation.
So to me it means viewing design holistically instead of through a single lens, and having the skills necessary to design across mediums that, in the professional world, are typically siloed. Check out the capabilities to see the areas I can cover.
// Mind Ordering.Limited Edition Box
After establishing the core look and feel, we decided the campaign would benefit from custom packaging to celebrate the launch. Again, I turned to the 80’s for inspiration - and they delivered (no pun intended). The 80’s Domino’s box is iconic and brings back memories of the Noid and Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtles. It would be silly to leave that nostalgia on the table and not leverage it, so I landed on using that as the top of the box, with an added Mind Ordering lockup with a QR code to drive to the app download.
There were two challenges in adapting the 80’s box for our current packaging. First, our modern boxes have chamfered corners and are no longer a perfect square, which took some fiddling with the orientation and type placement to solve. The second was that no one had the art files for the old box, so I needed to use low resolution images of it to replicate it as closely as possible.
That took care of the top of the box, but the rest of the box was still a blank canvas. Leaning into the spirit of the partnership, I created a series of graphics that tied together the history of Domino’s with themes from the show - a message from the Hawkins PD looking for the Noid, Domino’s sponsorship of the Hawkins high school basketball team, a posting from Hawkins lab looking for experiment volunteers, and more. We even went so far as getting St. Jude’s to allow us to use their logo from the 80’s for the ever-present graphic we have on all packaging about our relationship.
Lastly, I modeled the box as a 3D asset using the dieline then created a series of renderings and animations to use as campaign assets. This would later lead to modeling a scene of the lab where the Mind Ordering app takes place like in the render below.
There were two challenges in adapting the 80’s box for our current packaging. First, our modern boxes have chamfered corners and are no longer a perfect square, which took some fiddling with the orientation and type placement to solve. The second was that no one had the art files for the old box, so I needed to use low resolution images of it to replicate it as closely as possible.
That took care of the top of the box, but the rest of the box was still a blank canvas. Leaning into the spirit of the partnership, I created a series of graphics that tied together the history of Domino’s with themes from the show - a message from the Hawkins PD looking for the Noid, Domino’s sponsorship of the Hawkins high school basketball team, a posting from Hawkins lab looking for experiment volunteers, and more. We even went so far as getting St. Jude’s to allow us to use their logo from the 80’s for the ever-present graphic we have on all packaging about our relationship.
Lastly, I modeled the box as a 3D asset using the dieline then created a series of renderings and animations to use as campaign assets. This would later lead to modeling a scene of the lab where the Mind Ordering app takes place like in the render below.
// Mind Ordering.Box Reactions
The box did as it was intended - it got people excited for the partnership. What I didn’t anticipate was how excited people got. Customers were going to stores and asking for clean, unfolded boxes to put on their walls. Dozens posted about how much it reminded them of their childhood. A box even sold on eBay for something like $100. It was genuinely heartwarming and rewarding to see. I collected hundreds, but these are some of my favorites.
// Mind Ordering.Landing Page
I created a landing page about the campaign, again leveraging both Domino’s history and Stranger Things. I custom made nearly everything on the page. To point out a few, I animated the header video, created the vine/tentacles using geometry nodes in Blender, illustrated the retro Domino’s car, modeled and rendered the lab scene, and modeled the interactive 3D box on the page.
// Mind Ordering.Apparel
We also wanted to get in-store team members excited about the campaign, so I created some specialty shirts for them to wear while on the job. The 'Avoid the Demo-Noid' version became a limited-run giveaway item on twitter, gathering thousands of organic entries to win one of the shirts. You can still find them on eBay.
// Mind Ordering.Title Sequence Animation
Our CCO Matt Talbot and CMO of Domino’s, Kate Trumbull, gave a presentation about the campaign at an AdWeek event and requested an intro title sequence for the beginning. Using Blender, I created one in the style of Stranger Things in about a day.
// Mind Ordering.App Store Images
Since the app launched on both Android and iPhone app stores, we needed to create images showing the app in each. Instead of simple screenshots, we opted to put screenshots into phones sitting in the lab environment, with easter eggs from the show surrounding them. I used Blender to set the scenes up and render everything out for all the various required asset sizes.
