Virtual brand spaces: exploring the visual worlds of Danthree Studio

It was quite a surprise when RICHTER+FRENZEL presented its own premium brand for high-quality bathroom furnishings last fall. The Bavarian company is considered a pioneer in the German Sanitary and Heating Wholesale Trade, organises the annual RIFA trade fair in Nuremberg and is now embarking on a journey towards end customers. FOR is the name of the brand in question, which is committed to aspects such as individualisation, comfort and well-being. Its product range is broad: from washbasin, bathtub and shower fittings to bathroom ceramics, furniture and accessories. Richter+Frenzel works with experienced producers in Germany and Italy to manufacture FOR's five distinctive future series.

But how does this new brand take shape? How do you charge a name with emotion? And how do you create visual worlds that bring the range to life even before all the products can be physically assembled in one place? Richter+Frenzel entrusted the Munich-based AGENTUR RICHTER with the market launch, which initially defined a clear brand strategy for FOR. This then extended to defining the brand’s essence, summarised as follows: maximum empathy for the needs of the FOR target group.

As a strategic brand consultant, Alexandra Richter, Managing Director of Agentur Richter, and her team initially developed the entire communicative aspect of FOR’s unique position. In coordination with the brand's product design office, Artefakt from Darmstadt, the colour and material spectrum for the design of catalogues, image creation and showroom was also conceived.

As we have known at least since social media apps flooded our everyday lives with visual stimuli, strong images are the number one attention magnet. All the more important: motifs must follow an aesthetic that inspires. Images don’t always have to be real, but they do have to look realistic. For implementation, Richter came across Danthree Studio, a CGI Studio with expertise in the field of brand communication with CGI for the furniture, home and living industry. The team, led by founder Daniel Schuster, produces visually stunning material for numerous manufacturers in the interior design industry. The results are striking and powerful because they are able to successfully combine the advantages of virtual interior design with a surprisingly authentic look and feel for brand communication.

Danthree Studio's work does not create walk-in brand spaces, but rather tangible visual worlds. Matt lacquered surfaces, rough textures of concrete and natural stone or the reflection of a mirror-like object; it takes little effort to imagine the feel, hardness or temperature of a surface in reality.

‘We created more than 120 CGI product images for marketing for the first four series – room worlds for main and guest bathrooms as well as detailed views. There were also video clips such as animated room views,’ explains Schuster. The starting point for the development of the virtual bathroom design was an intensive briefing by the Richter agency. 

‘Danthree Studio adhered closely to our brand strategy specifications in a positive sense,’ says Richter. ‘Based on mood boards, we already knew exactly which colours and materials the FOR series should interact with in the images. Daniel then came over for half a day, during which we sat down together and defined the various room concepts relatively quickly. What impressed me about Danthree Studio was firstly how quickly they internalised our brand strategy and translated it into visual worlds – it's worth highlighting that we had less than a year for the complete brand launch. On the other hand, it was their extremely high level of material knowledge and their good spatial understanding that convinced me time and again.’

It’s safe to say that anyone who has extensively studied the tactile and visual qualities of different materials knows how to translate them into a visual language that appears as unartificial as possible. But Schuster and his team go one step further: they visualise how natural daylight, for example, breaks through a canopy of trees in front of a window and then touches the bathroom wall in the form of a gentle play of shadows. Besides, the images are deliberately reduced, tending to be cool and product-focused, as Richter explains. ‘But because we combine it with motifs such as body parts of naked skin in the overall communication, the end result works wonderfully to emotionally charge the FOR brand.’

FOR becomes physically tangible with the first two bathroom series, Odivis and Leano, in the new Baths & Wellness Store that Richter+Frenzel opened in the Upper Bavarian town of Dorfen in December 2023. The 3D visualisations by Danthree Studio can also be found online and in the FOR design catalogue.

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