CRAYOLA

Storytelling in full color

Crayola is one of America's most iconic brands, a name that has meant color and creativity for generations. To show that its purpose reaches well beyond the crayon box, Crayola created Inspired, a branded content series about real artists whose lives are shaped by color, built to prove a simple idea: that creativity can change a life.

Ruckus was brought in to find those artists, earn their trust, and tell their stories as honestly as the work they make. The approach: document, never dramatize. Ruckus developed each story and produced each film on location, letting the artist and the art carry the narrative. The first film won an Emmy.

One dot of color at a time

Brian Delozier builds his art one dot at a time, layering countless points of color into luminous animals, faces, and worlds all their own. After a severe injury at sixteen, he found in art a way forward, and his story of bravery and determination became the heart of the series. Ruckus set out to tell it the way Brian makes his work: patiently, honestly, and in every color.

Every piece takes shape point by point, color layered on color until the image emerges, patience made visible. Ruckus wrote, shot, and produced Brian's Dots on location, telling Brian's story in his own words. Crayola released it to its audience, and the film now lives on Crayola's official YouTube channel.

A sculptor whose medium is the crayon

In a Nashville studio filled floor to ceiling with color, Herb Williams makes sculpture from the most familiar art material on earth: the crayon. Each piece is built entirely from individual crayons, sometimes hundreds of thousands of them in a single work, and he is one of the few individuals in the world to hold a direct account with Crayola.

A Ruckus crew spent two days on location in Herb's studio capturing the interview and b-roll that became Herb's Story. Story development, direction, edit, licensed score, and the full graphics package were all handled by Ruckus, along with a sixty-second trailer built to travel, driving audiences back to the full story across Crayola's channels.

An Emmy, in the category's first year

In the first year the Emmy Award for Branded Content existed, it went to a Ruckus film. Brian's Dots took top honors for Crayola at the September 2020 ceremony, the first Emmy for Ruckus and proof that a true story, told patiently and beautifully, can outperform any ad. The film also won a Gold ADDY, Judges' Choice, and drew over 560,000 organic views in its first 30 days.