Case Study · digades GmbH · Product Communication · Illustration · Animation
dfreeeze — Illustrated Product Campaign for digades
How do you explain a technical smartphone-controlled parking-heater system without turning the communication into a technical manual?
For the dfreeeze app from digades GmbH, I developed a hand-drawn product campaign combining character design, comic storytelling, illustration, storyboard development and whiteboard animation. The same visual world extended into printed comic booklets and retail communication.
Visual concept · Storyboard · Character design · Illustration · Animation · Printed comics
The Communication Problem
Make a technical function immediately understandable
The dfreeeze app allows users to control a vehicle parking heater from a smartphone. Technically, that is simple to describe. Visually, however, the useful part is not the connection between phone and heater — it is what that connection changes for the person standing outside on a freezing morning.
Rather than explain the system through screenshots or diagrams alone, I built the communication around recognisable winter situations, recurring characters and simple cause-and-effect storytelling.
Hand-Drawn Product Film
The award-winning dfreeeze campaign film
The film uses characters, visual timing and everyday situations to explain the app through a story rather than an abstract feature demonstration.
Character Design
Michael and Stefan — characters that carry the story
An important part of the campaign was the development of recurring characters, including Michael and Stefan. They allowed the product to be shown through contrasting situations and gave the technical subject a recognisable human level.
Because the figures were designed specifically for the project, they could move between animation, comics and campaign imagery while keeping the same tone and personality.
Cross-Media Campaign
The story did not stop with the film
The same characters and narrative language were used in printed comic booklets and campaign material, allowing the communication to work in retail and point-of-sale environments as well as on screen.
That continuity is one of the strengths of original illustration: a visual world can be developed once and then adapted intelligently across film, print and campaign formats without becoming a collection of unrelated assets.
My Role
From visual concept to animation
My work on the campaign covered the visual development from concept through storyboard, character design and illustration to animation.
The scenes were built so that product information, character action and timing worked as one piece of communication rather than as separate layers added at the end.
The artwork was developed specifically for the project — no stock characters, template libraries or AI-generated commissioned imagery.
Recognition
“sit & watch Top Kampagne 2014”
The campaign received additional attention after coverage in the VW, Audi and Porsche magazine GUTE FAHRT and was later recognised as a national “sit & watch Top Kampagne 2014”.
“Wir werden berühmt! Nach dem Artikel im VW-, Audi- und Porsche-Magazin GUTE FAHRT wurde unsere Winterabend-Werbung auch noch national ausgezeichnet. Danke an Zeichner Ian D. Marsden und an die Agentur Sit&Watch für den Preis!”
digades GmbH, Sachsen
Project at a glance
Client
digades GmbH
Product
dfreeeze smartphone app
Scope
Visual concept
Storyboard
Character design
Illustration
Animation
Applications
Whiteboard film
Printed comics
Retail / POS
Product marketing
Recognition
sit & watch Top Kampagne 2014
Sector
Automotive / app / technical product communication
Related work
The dfreeeze project sits at the intersection of comics, character design, product communication and hand-drawn animation.
Illustrated Product Communication
Need to explain a product through a story?
If you have a technical product, app or service that is easier to understand in use than in a specification list, send me a short outline of the subject, audience and intended format.
