Case study 07 Outdoor · Ski & snow · Spec work
Three products from the Norwegian brand that has kept people dry and alive outside since 1877. Three films, twenty-five stills and three product infographics by the end of the afternoon, on ridgelines, powder faces and snowmobile traverses, with no athlete, no mountain and no weather window. What Fotyra Studio delivers when the product has to prove itself in the snow.
Helly HansenThe top of the ridge is where the jacket stops being a purchase.
1:00 pm
Helly Hansen began in 1877 in Moss, Norway, when a sea captain named Helly Juell Hansen and his wife Maren Margarethe started soaking coarse linen in linseed oil to make jackets, trousers and sou'westers that kept sailors dry. Nearly a century later, in 1970, the company made LIFA, the first technical base layer, and in 1980 HELLY TECH®, its waterproof, breathable system. The brand says its gear is used today by more than 55,000 mountain professionals and guides at over 200 ski resorts, and it talks the way people who work in weather talk: confident, practical, and quietly moved by the outdoors. Born by the sea, raised by the mountains, and built to help people stay and feel alive.
That is why it is the seventh study, and a different kind of test. Fenty was skin; Helly Hansen is weather. A ski jacket is sold on what happens when snow, wind and cold arrive, and the people who buy this one include ski patrollers and guides who can spot a fake turn, a floating snowmobile or a spray of snow that falls the wrong way from across a room. The brand's own rule forbids artificial studio adventure and glossy spectacle that makes the mountains look risk-free. So the brief was three URLs, no athlete, no mountain, no reference deck, and one afternoon. The snow had to read as weather.
Fotyra always starts in the same order, whatever the brand: the brand, then every product, then, if you want one, a face. Pointed at hellyhansen.com, the e-commerce engine wrote a Brand DNA in eleven sections: an overview that read a heritage brand selling skiing, sailing, hiking and everyday rainwear direct to its customers; a positioning built on Norwegian weather protection and professional field validation across both ocean and mountain; and a visual identity of black, white and signature Helly Hansen red, Scandinavian restraint, and natural, weather-responsive light. It read the voice as confident, technical, adventurous, purposeful and reassuring, with humor at none to very light, and the preferred formats as cinematic brand films, documentary-style vertical video and bold statics with short, benefit-led headlines. It also wrote down what to avoid: artificial studio adventure scenes, macho bravado, and any image that makes a difficult environment look effortless. Every piece below inherits that reading.
Then the part a brand's own team rarely writes down. The audience: adults 25 to 54 who ski, sail, hike and commute in bad weather, practical and experience-driven, with serious recreational skiers and snowboarders from 18 to 45 as the sharpest segment. What they worry about: bulky insulation that fights their movement, overheating on the climb, and gear that fails when it matters. What triggers a purchase: the approach of ski season, a forecast that turns, and the memory of a cheaper jacket that let them down. The words to use, professional-grade, protection, stay and feel alive, and the words to avoid, ordinary, fashion-only, disposable. And three competitors mapped in a shopper's head: Patagonia, The North Face and Arc'teryx. Two of the three Alphelia headlines below are written straight at the first two worries on that list.
Next, each of the three product pages into a Product DNA: the Alphelia's HELLY TECH® PROFESSIONAL shell, LIFALOFT™ insulation, H2FLOW™ ventilation, RECCO® reflector and powder skirt, and the three uses the page names for it, resort, off-piste and alpine racing; the Powderface's HELLY TECH® Performance membrane, PrimaLoft® insulation, pit zips and relaxed fit, and the exact Luminous Green that must never drift into a different green; the Monashee's waterproof membrane, suede upper, high-traction dual outsole and Pro Guard toe and heel, and the scale of a boot against a slab of granite. The reading also fixed the rules every frame had to obey: no reckless backcountry behavior, no water beading bigger than the fabric supports, no suggestion that a reflector replaces preparation, and no feature hidden behind a prop. A person could read three product pages this closely. Nobody does it at this speed, and then holds one green steady through fifteen seconds of spray and low sun.
1:40 pm
The men's jacket went first because it is the harder brief: a backcountry jacket in a color that cannot shift, on snow that has to behave like snow, often on a moving body throwing it into the air. The studio proposed two landscape films in the brand's documentary register and seven stills, five logo-only verticals and two campaign wides with the copy on. The first film opens the page and comes back in full at the end. The second is the one that asks the question every off-piste skier knows.
Film · Men's Powderface Ski Jacket · 16:9 · 0:15
Where the groomed run ends, the choice begins.
Every mountain has an edge where the corduroy stops and the snow nobody has touched begins, and a rider who stands at it a beat longer than he needs to. He looks over the lip with the board under his arm, pulls the hood up with both hands, and then the camera is at arm's length and the only sounds are breath and spray. A 15-second landscape film for the Men's Powderface Ski Jacket, in the documentary, action-camera register the Brand DNA prefers, made for the off-piste skier the jacket is specified for.
Then the stills, each built on one feeling from the concept board: rejecting the tidy turn, the breath before the steepest one, and the plain joy of not riding gently.
Still · Men's Powderface Ski Jacket · 9:16
Cut your own path.
Powder does not reward a tidy turn, and the rider knows it. He lays the board into a steep face in blue shadow and the slope comes up behind him in a wall of spray, the hood's orange lining the only warm thing on the mountain. A logo-only vertical for the Powderface, for Stories and Reels, that argues weather protection and freedom of movement with a body rather than a feature list.
Still · Men's Powderface Ski Jacket · 9:16
The breath before the next turn.
The steepest part of a run is quiet in the head and loud everywhere else. A skier drives into the fall line under a rock band, knees low, poles out, the Luminous Green reading clean against flat grey snow. The off-piste still for the Powderface, the use Helly Hansen specifies it for, in the natural, weather-responsive light the reading insists on.
Still · Men's Powderface Ski Jacket · 9:16
The satisfying refusal to ride gently.
Some days the snow is too good to be polite to. A rider slashes a powder face with the board up and a grin under the goggles, hood over the helmet, the spray still in the air. The joyful still of the Powderface set, built on snow protection and off-piste confidence, for the feed where a grin travels further than a spec.
Press any of them to see it full size.
Still · Men's Powderface Ski Jacket · 16:9
Ready when the group is.
A skier carving through trees with the headline on the left: a ski-pass pocket keeps one small mountain task close while the day keeps moving, and a button to check the pocket details. The campaign wide that sells the smallest feature on the jacket as the thing that keeps a group moving, in the belonging-and-togetherness voice the reading lists among the brand's emotional hooks.
For a lot of backcountry skiers the day starts on a machine, and a snowmobile is the fastest way to find out whether a jacket is warm, sealed and still easy to move in. The studio made two portraits on one, one loud and one calm, and a campaign wide with the copy on. Every machine is anonymous, every rider has both boots on the running boards, and the spray comes off the track the way it would.
Still · Men's Powderface Ski Jacket · 9:16
Feel the terrain. Trust the preparation.
A snowmobile traverse across fresh powder is loud, cold and faster than it looks, and the rider's job is to stay calm inside it. He leans hard uphill with both boots on the running boards while the track throws a fan of snow off an open face. The backcountry-access still for the Powderface, for riders whose ski day starts on a machine, and the image the study's top-scoring concept came from.
Still · Men's Powderface Ski Jacket · 9:16
Composed when the route turns exposed.
The weather ahead is a wall of cloud, and the rider drives toward it anyway, seen from behind, hood up, the green jacket the one bright thing between the snow and the storm. Nothing is dramatic about the frame, which is the point: this is what prepared looks like. The hooded, seam-sealed protection still for the Powderface, made for the moment a forecast changes its mind.
Still · Men's Powderface Ski Jacket · 16:9
Cold hits. Keep driving.
A snowmobile coming out of the trees in a burst of powder, the rider in Luminous Green, and the line in a heavy serif: HELLY TECH® Performance protection for backcountry days that refuse to slow down. One red button, see the jacket, in the brand's own red. The Powderface campaign wide for the site and the banner, bold and compressed the way the reading says Helly Hansen ads should be.
2:30 pm
The women's jacket is the one Helly Hansen names for three different days, the resort, the off-piste and the race course, so the studio gave it all three and a snowboard besides, in both of the colorways the page shows. Its argument is more warmth with less bulk, and a warm jacket is hard to make look light; the answer, in picture after picture, was a body in the air or at full lean. The widest of them, a climb above the cloud, opens the chapter and is the cover of this study.
Still · Women's Alphelia LIFALOFT™ Ski Jacket · 16:9
Some of the best days start with a wall, not a lift.
Not every mountain day begins at the bottom of a chairlift. A woman in the mint Alphelia climbs a face of rime ice, one hand already on the next hold, while the cloud has sunk below a whole range of peaks behind her. It makes the warmth-without-bulk argument through the one thing a bulky jacket cannot do, which is reach. The landscape wide for the site and the banner, logo only, and the cover of this study.
Still · Women's Alphelia LIFALOFT™ Ski Jacket · 9:16
Speed, exposure, and all of it on purpose.
A skier in the pink Alphelia carving hard against a rock-banded face, the snow falling away under her edges. The pose is the proof: articulated sleeves and four-way stretch show up as a body that is not being held back by its jacket. The alpine-racing still for the Alphelia, one of the three uses Helly Hansen names for it, made for the skier who wants the refined silhouette and the speed.
Still · Women's Alphelia LIFALOFT™ Ski Jacket · 9:16
The quiet euphoria of the top.
The whole day is in her raised fist: the last climb done, the sky gone pink over the ranges, one more run still to take. Warm dusk light on the jacket and cold blue snow under the skis, and nothing to read. The LIFALOFT™ still for a full alpine day, lightweight warmth told as how you feel at four o'clock rather than how many grams it weighs.
Still · Women's Alphelia LIFALOFT™ Ski Jacket · 9:16
Unguarded, and already planning the next run.
Under the chairlift on a bright groomer, a rider in pink leans into a turn and laughs at nothing in particular. The frame is candid, the snow is ordinary, and it is the most inviting picture in the set. The resort still for the Alphelia, for the feed, built on lightweight warmth felt in the middle of a joyful run.
Still · Women's Alphelia LIFALOFT™ Ski Jacket · 9:16
The finish area, and a shout that has been waiting all course.
A racer in the mint Alphelia skids into the finish area with a fist up and her mouth open, the crowd behind the fence still cheering. It is the alpine-racing promise from the product page made human: not the gate, but the second after it. The race-day still for the Alphelia, for the brand's ski-racing audience and the season-opener posts.
Still · Women's Alphelia LIFALOFT™ Ski Jacket · 9:16
The line off the ridge was never going to be tidy.
The line off this ridge was never going to be tidy, and she has stopped pretending it would be. A heelside turn in the mint Alphelia throws a wall of snow off a dark, steep face, the hood and cuffs moving with her rather than against her. A logo-only vertical for the feed and Stories, freedom of movement judged the way snowboarders judge it, by how much snow leaves the edge.
Press any of them to see it full size.
Three headline statics in the brand's bold, compressed ad voice, each with its reason to believe and its button on the image, so it runs on the feed with the sound off and no caption. One for the racer, one for the skier who hates bulky insulation, and one for the shopper wondering whether one jacket can do the whole mountain.
Still · Women's Alphelia LIFALOFT™ Ski Jacket · 9:16
Keep going down.
A racer clearing a gate in pink with snow in the air and the headline over the sky: for skiers who do not wait around, with HELLY TECH® PROFESSIONAL protection on changing mountain days. A button to take the descent. The alpine-racing headline ad for the Alphelia, short, direct and benefit-led, the way the reading says the brand's statics should talk.
Still · Women's Alphelia LIFALOFT™ Ski Jacket · 9:16
The cold stays outside.
Low and fast through the trees with the goggles pushed down and a small, certain smile, and the line above her: lightweight insulation and articulated sleeves keep the jacket ready for active snow days. One button, ride in it. The warmth-without-bulk headline ad, aimed squarely at the first worry on the audience list, insulation that gets in the way of moving.
Still · Women's Alphelia LIFALOFT™ Ski Jacket · 9:16
The horizon takes work.
A rider in the air with a fist up and the headline at the foot of the frame: a jacket built for resort skiing, off-piste use, and alpine racing. A button that says go meet it. The whole-mountain headline ad for the Alphelia, the three uses from the product page in one sentence, for the shopper deciding whether a single jacket can do all of it.
Four more for the riders who read a ski jacket's spec for their snowboard days and their machine days: a heelside carve led by the ventilation, a colder run after the light has gone, a hard-weather climb on a snowmobile, and the same kind of crossing on an ordinary grey afternoon, calm on purpose.
Still · Women's Alphelia LIFALOFT™ Ski Jacket · 9:16
The harder, sharper line.
A snowboarder in mint lays a heelside carve under a dark rock wall, the spray kicking up bright against the blue. The choice to turn harder is the story, and the vents that let the heat out are why she can keep doing it. The freedom-of-movement still for the Alphelia, led by H2FLOW™ ventilation, for riders who read a ski jacket's spec for the snowboard days too.
Still · Women's Alphelia LIFALOFT™ Ski Jacket · 9:16
Colder, darker, still riding.
A rider in mint drops across a dark slope with a single hard light catching the snow she throws. The temperature has fallen with the sun and nothing about her posture has noticed. The low-light still for the Alphelia, a campaign-grade frame for the insulation story, made to stop a thumb on a bright feed.
Still · Women's Alphelia LIFALOFT™ Ski Jacket · 9:16
The weather comes at her. She does not back down.
A storm shelf over the ridge, a snowmobile climbing a powder face at an angle that looks wrong, and a rider in pink leaning uphill to hold it there. Low sun carves her out of the mountain shadow; the jacket's color is the only warm note in the frame. The hard-weather still for the Alphelia, led by HELLY TECH® PROFESSIONAL protection, for the audience who ski where the lift does not go.
Still · Women's Alphelia LIFALOFT™ Ski Jacket · 9:16
Capability that looks already earned.
The counterweight to Hold the Line: the same kind of machine on a flat, overcast snowfield, the rider upright and unhurried, the weather ordinary. Nothing is dramatic because nothing needs to be. The long-traverse still for the Alphelia, professional-grade protection shown as calm, for the skier who wants to feel settled rather than thrilled.
Every other piece on this page is photographic, because the reading asked for authentic outdoor imagery. This one steps outside that on purpose, to show the range: the same Alphelia, rendered as 3D animation. Nothing about the product changes when the world does. The color, the chest mark and the cut hold exactly, which is what makes an animated style usable for a real brand rather than a novelty. It is the kind of piece a brand keeps for a kids' line, a holiday post or a lighter campaign, and the kind a brand is free to reject.
Still · Women's Alphelia LIFALOFT™ Ski Jacket · 16:9
The same jacket, in a 3D animated world.
The one piece of the afternoon that is not a photograph: a 3D animated rider in the mint Alphelia, mid-air over snow-loaded spruce with a grin as wide as her arms and a whole range of peaks behind her. The style trades the documentary grit for pure lightness, and the jacket survives the translation exactly, the mint, the HH chest mark, the zip lines and the hood all where the product page puts them. A 16:9 wide in an animated register, for the brand's kids' and family pages, seasonal social and any campaign that wants delight before it wants proof.
3:15 pm
The reading was clear that a studio should never be the main stage for this brand, and just as clear that clean studio frames still have a job: color stories, the product page and the retail grid. So the Alphelia got four, and each one carries a single idea about weather instead of pretending to be a mountain. A fine mist on a hood, a hem that lifts like it weighs nothing, a wave held at the top of its curl, and the whole jacket, full length, with nothing in the way.
Still · Women's Alphelia LIFALOFT™ Ski Jacket · 9:16
The weather makes an entrance. She barely gives it one.
A fine mist falls out of the top of the frame onto the hood, and she settles the hood's edge with one hand and winks. The water sits in beads on the shoulder, no bigger than it would in life, against a warm orange sweep. The seam-sealed, water-repellent still for the Alphelia's product page, a small real weather event instead of a storm, with amused confidence where a lesser ad would put a claim.
Still · Women's Alphelia LIFALOFT™ Ski Jacket · 9:16
Warmth does not have to look heavy.
A turn mid-stride against a near-black backdrop, the hem of the pink jacket lifting like it weighs nothing, and a wink over the shoulder. It is the lightest picture in the set and the most exact about the insulation. The LIFALOFT™ still for the product page and the retail grid, a small delight that says more warmth, less bulk without the words.
Still · Women's Alphelia LIFALOFT™ Ski Jacket · 9:16
The weather arrives. The jacket was ready.
A wave of clear water arcs over a woman standing still in the pink Alphelia against deep navy, frozen at the top of its curl. The one piece of spectacle in the set, kept to a studio where it reads as an idea about protection rather than a claim about a storm. The campaign still for the Alphelia's color story, for the site and the out-of-home crop.
Still · Women's Alphelia LIFALOFT™ Ski Jacket · 9:16
The whole jacket, nothing in the way.
The mint Alphelia on a grey sweep, full length, a steady look at the camera, one hand at the cuff. Every feature the reading says must never be hidden, hood, powder-skirt line, pockets, vents, is simply there. The product-page still, the frame a shopper opens to check the fit before they believe any of the mountain pictures.
Press any of them to see it full size.
3:45 pm
The boot got one film, and it is the only piece of the afternoon with a voice. The reading asked for UGC as credible field documentation rather than influencer comedy: a real person, a real route, a small moment of doubt and a practical answer. So the script is four short lines spoken on an exposed ridge at first light, and the proof is a gloved hand pulling the laces tight and a boot set down on wet granite that does not move.
Film · Men's Monashee ULLR™ HT Boots · 9:16 · 0:10
The snow hides every safe step.
Wet rock under a skin of snow is the one surface that tells the truth about a pair of boots. A man leans into his phone on an exposed ridge at first light and talks like a friend who has just had a small fright, then the laces go tight in gloved hands and a boot is set down on cold, wet granite and stays exactly where it was put. A 10-second creator-style Helly Hansen ad for the Men's Monashee ULLR HT boots, the field-diary kind of UGC the reading asks for rather than influencer comedy, ending the way the format asks, with a link.
Voice-overThis ridge punishes bad footing. The snow hides every safe step. Monashee boots use max grip. I'll link them, honestly.
Press the film to watch with sound.
4:00 pm
Some shoppers do not want a ridge or a story. They want to see the boot and be told, plainly, what it does. So the last pieces of the afternoon have no people in them at all: three square product infographics for the Monashee ULLR, each with the boot as the only subject and three labels pointed straight at the parts that earn the price, the waterproof membrane with its premium suede upper, the high-traction dual outsole, and the Pro Guard protective toe and heel. Every label comes from the product page, drawn from its Product DNA, and every one points at the right part of the boot.
Same three facts, three different moods, so a brand can test which one a shopper stops for: water in the air on acid green, grit on a wet blue floor, and a quiet lake light with nothing else in the frame. They are built for the first slot of a product page carousel, for marketplace listings where a lifestyle picture is not allowed to lead, and for the retargeting ad that has to answer the question the shopper left with.
Still · Men's Monashee ULLR™ HT Boots · 1:1
Water in the air, and a boot that does not care.
The boot hangs in a burst of water droplets against acid green, and three labels do the selling: a waterproof membrane with a premium suede upper, a high-traction dual outsole, and Pro Guard protection at the toe and heel. The loudest of the three infographics, built to stop the scroll on color and then pay it off with the proof. For the feed and the product page's first image carousel.
Still · Men's Monashee ULLR™ HT Boots · 1:1
Grit, wet and a hard floor, and three reasons it holds.
The boot planted on a wet blue surface while dark grit sprays up behind it, the same three callouts pointed at the upper, the toe and the tread. It makes the rough-ground case the ridge film makes with a voice, without a person in the frame. The durability infographic for the Monashee, for retail listings and the comparison shopper who wants the construction spelled out.
Still · Men's Monashee ULLR™ HT Boots · 1:1
Everything the boot does, with the noise turned off.
A pale, still lake light and the boot standing alone in it, three-quarter on, with the membrane, the dual outsole and the Pro Guard toe and heel labeled in the brand's black and red. The calm one, Scandinavian restraint in a single frame, where the other two shout. The clean infographic for the product page and marketplace listings, where a shopper wants the facts and nothing between them and the boot.
4:15 pm
Thirty-one pieces of finished creative, from three product pages and no shoot, in a single afternoon session of a few hours. Two landscape films for YouTube and the site in the brand's cinematic register, one creator-style vertical for TikTok and Reels, twenty-one stills for the feed and the product page, four wides for the banner, one of them in a 3D animated style, and three product infographics for the listing. A production company would need a ski resort, a backcountry guide, two snowmobiles, a race course, a studio, half a dozen athletes and a weather window, and most of a season.
None of it reached this page on trust. Fotyra Studio runs a built-in fidelity check after every render: its Quality Checker compares each render against the product sheet and any spokesmodel references and, for a film, against frames sampled across every scene. When it finds a major issue, a jacket drifting into the wrong green, a boot growing a different sole, it re-renders the piece on its own before anyone sees it, and that corrective render never costs extra. Every piece then arrives in the Creative Library with its Fidelity report: the verdict, the scores, and whether a retry already ran and why. The team reviewing the work spends its time on taste, not on catching mistakes the studio already caught.
If this were a real engagement, the afternoon would end differently. The brand's team would approve or reject each piece in the Creative Library, resize the stills for every placement, cast a recurring guide if it wanted one, and have the lot in a shared folder by the evening, ready for the start of the season. That part of the studio is already built; it is what the help center documents, step by step.
And the film that opened the page, in full: a ridge in flat grey light, a zip pulled to the chin at the top, and the long way down in low sun.
Film · Men's Powderface Ski Jacket · 16:9 · 0:15
The top of the ridge is where the jacket stops being a purchase.
Nobody remembers the jacket on the way up. They remember it at the top, when the wind finds the gap at the collar and the cloud breaks gold over the next valley, and the zip goes up to the chin without a thought. A 15-second landscape Helly Hansen film for the Men's Powderface Ski Jacket, cut to music without a word, that climbs from flat grey light to a low-sun descent the way the brand's own films build from quiet effort to earned reward, for YouTube and the site.
Women's Alphelia LIFALOFT™ Ski Jacket
An insulated women's ski jacket with HELLY TECH® PROFESSIONAL protection, LIFALOFT™ insulation and H2FLOW™ ventilation, for resort, off-piste and alpine racing.
Men's Powderface Ski Jacket
An insulated backcountry and off-piste ski jacket with HELLY TECH® Performance protection, PrimaLoft® insulation and pit zips.
Men's Monashee ULLR™ HT Boots
A waterproof winter hiking boot with a suede upper, a high-traction dual outsole and Pro Guard protection at the toe and heel.
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