The marketing department is roaring to launch a new product featuring new engineering and colors that will draw eyes from far and wide. The launch timeline is tight and an impactful digital representation that will draw customers from across all media platforms is essential. How can products be exhibited with a crisp and clean aesthetic and interactive experience to match?

Santa Cruz based Thomas Burke & Others (TB&O) has the solution, serving client’s imaging needs with computer generated imagery (CGI), animations, interactive web experiences, traditional photography, and still & video post-production.

Santa Cruz Works spoke with Mike James, TB&O’s Managing Principal, to learn more about this Santa Cruz based company and what goes into the digital imagery of today and tomorrow.

TB&O works with innovate technologies to provide high quality marketing material and generate digital representations of products that look and behave as clients desire. A team of four full time employees and various specialists work to create media magic to take product visuals to the next level.

Asking Mike about TB&O’s objective:

“Our job is to create what the client envisions…what they want to represent. We help companies engage their clients with visuals that show people what they aren’t used to seeing and how products work.

As digital imagery has taken on an increasingly dominant role in product marketing, tying aesthetics to action and capturing viewers attention for longer is essential. With ray-tracing applications such as KeyShot, TB&O can create stunning images from engineering files. As rendering technologies have improved, the reduced cost and time to create visuals has allowed pioneers such as TB&O to disrupt the industry with

imagery and animation more photo-real than photo-real is photo-real

Asking Mike about TB&O’s process for rendering projects:

Start with CAD files from engineering and determined rendering compatibility
Organize files around marketing materials objectives
Work with clients’ shot lists and understand how products work
Create custom lighting, materials, and textures for realistic representations

Recently, TB&O developed the marketing materials for FOX Factory’s new 2021 product line. Working from CAD drawings and in tight collaboration with the FOX team, TB&O created incredible images and animations of suspension products with CGI. Sean Estes, Brand Manager for FOX’s bike division explains that by using KeyShot’s animation system

“we were able to produce photo-real renders of our 2021 product line months sooner than we would have with traditional photography and much easier.”

The TB&O team prides itself in working closely with clients to understand products inside and out and capturing complex mechanical and visual dynamics. By providing premium optical experiences, audiences can interact and see beyond the visuals.

What’s next at TB&O?

We believe that what we did yesterday isn’t good enough for today and what we do today won’t get the attention it deserves tomorrow. This was true in 1971 and it’s been true everyday since. Remembering this keeps us striving to do something better than that better thing we just did.

Thomas Burke & Others is celebrating its 50th year as part of the Santa Cruz community in April and continues to innovate to create enthralling visuals for customers’ products. Learn more about TB&O at https://www.thomasburke.com

Seeing Beyond Visuals with TB&O