Creative Brief

Vertex Pharmaceuticals, a leader in biotechnology innovation, partnered with Crxss Agency to create a visual centrepiece for an internal and external campaign spotlighting the company’s work in pain research. The creative goal was ambitious: to visualise the emotional and scientific journey of patients and researchers navigating one of medicine’s most intractable fields. The narrative needed to be symbolic and elegant, conveying both the darkness of untreated pain and the glimmer of hope that Vertex’s research represents.

Our Approach

Little Shadow was brought on to design and animate a visual sequence that embodied the campaign’s central metaphor: light as knowledge, resilience, and transformation. We began in complete blackness-a visual metaphor for the underexplored state of pain research. From this void, a single beam of light emerges, splitting and swirling in motion, each strand representing different branches of innovation and discovery.

Built in After Effects and Cinema 4D, the animation combines abstract light dynamics with structured architectural forms. The light travels through negative space, illuminating key “moments of impact”-stylised representations of the human body and points of chronic pain. These moments were designed to feel both poetic and grounded, using 3D lighting, volumetrics, and compositing techniques to avoid clinical visuals while retaining clarity.

Portrait photography sequences, art-directed in collaboration with Crxss, punctuate the motion work. These striking monochrome portraits, lit with the same beam motif, highlight real patients and researchers, reflecting their resilience and drive. The final act of the piece shows light overtaking the frame, dissolving darkness and symbolising a horizon of new treatment possibilities.

The Results

Delivered as a suite of campaign assets across digital and event platforms, the animation became a core visual of the campaign. It set the emotional tone for Vertex’s research messaging and was praised internally for its balance of aesthetic refinement and conceptual clarity.