Charli XCX’s 2019 album Charli followed two incredible mixtapes, both of which shaped a big move forward in direction for her. We began working with Charli on the 2019 single ‘Boys’ which in many ways was the beginning of this album campaign.

Charli’s digital presence is built on Charli expressing herself, voicing her opinions and cultural relevance. For this album campaign (and long term) our aim has been to use incredible, relatable and aspirational content to drive fan interactions and build an engaged following into the release of the album and tour.

We work closely with Charli and her photographer/videographer Henry Redcliffe to capture day-to-day content for Charli’s social platforms. This is a vital part of Charli’s digital presence and Charli is extremely involved. This process has been vital for building and showcasing the aura of Charli, the music, her explosive live performances and her fans.

The visuals for Charli [the album] are based around incredible photography of Charli – a full-body image for the album artwork and shots of her and the wealth of features on the album for each IG track, including Haim, Lizzo and Troye Sivan.

Moving 3D elements and futuristic animations have been a huge part of the musical visual identity that we’ve helped create for Charli. Following the 3D designs added to each album image, we animated them to move and glow on the beat to the music during the teasers and full-length visualisers. These strong visuals were also used for announcing the Charli tour – which spanned the US, UK and Europe – beginning almost at album release until the end of the year.

We also wanted to create something incredible for Spotify Canvas and YouTube on album release, so every song would stand out visually when being listened to on devices. Taking inspiration from the Pop2 animations we made in 2017 and the 1999 visuals we created in 2018, we created a moving wave background with bouncing 3D titles. Each song has an individual colour and identity online.

Charli has an extremely dedicated fanbase and they were utilised to the fullest. The nature of her fanbase is to be as outwardly creative in support of Charli and the XCX “ecosystem” as possible. As soon as Charli drops something, there are memes and UGC everywhere. Most of the time these would be utilising the most current memes, GIFs or viral content. As well as creating this style of content in house, we often share and use this content as a way of integrating her fans into her journey.