Fellow
a product film for the perfect pour
01 · The brief
A kettle that's famous for its silhouette.
Fellow is a San Francisco design brand founded by Jake Miller in 2013. Its tagline is “Everyday Magic.” The Stagg EKG is its electric pour-over kettle: a squat cylinder with a flat lid, a long gooseneck and a counterbalanced handle, set on a square base with a small display and one dial. It holds 0.9 L, draws 1200 W, sets any temperature from 135–212 °F and holds it for up to 60 minutes.
- 2013
- Founded in San Francisco by Jake Miller
- $193k
- Raised on Kickstarter by its first product, the Duo Coffee Steeper
- Red Dot ’18
- Design award for the Stagg EKG
- $30M
- Series B, June 2022
Design problems we chose
- 01
Make precision visible
Temperature, flow and balance are the EKG’s real benefits, and all three are invisible on camera. The film needs a visual language for each.
- 02
One hero object, many finishes
Black, white, copper, stone blue with walnut. A modular CGI pipeline keeps every colourway and future launch consistent and fast.
- 03
Calm, not loud
The audience buys slow rituals. The edit has to move at the pace of a pour, not a sneaker ad.
Our goal
A 60-second launch film that makes precision visible, built on one 3D scene that renders every colourway and every cutdown.
02 · Audience
Three people who'd watch a kettle film to the end.
Fellow’s public audience is specialty home brewers, design-led gift buyers and tea drinkers. Each persona gets at least one shot written for them.
Personas are NUUKE research assumptions built from the brand’s public audience, not real customers.
03 · Creative concept
Everyday Magic, made of light.
Before modelling anything we agree a mood: dark seamless studio, one warm rim, slow motion. The moodboard is built entirely in code, from palette, material and type cards, so nothing is borrowed.
The line we build on
Everyday Magic.
“When the simple motions of life become small moments of joy, that’s Everyday Magic.” Fellow brand copy
Our film idea: make precision visible. Temperature, balance and flow are invisible benefits, so each becomes a beat of light.
Grade palette from the published colourways. Hex values are our working approximation, not official Fellow colours.
Light
One rim on black.
Silhouette first. The gooseneck is the logo you don’t need to show.
Type
Stagg EKG
SET 205°F · NOW 68°F
Titles in Montserrat 900, tight. Data in Inter with tabular figures, like the base’s display.
Motion
The pour sets the pace.
One review measured a ~1–2 g/s trickle. Slow in, slow out; no whip pans.
Light = heat. The rim warms and the element glows as the reading climbs.
Ring = time. Hold mode draws a 60-minute circle around the base.
Dot = balance. A centre-of-mass marker shows why it doesn’t nose-dive.
04 · Storyboard
Ten shots, about fifty seconds.
Every frame is drawn before anything is rendered. Click a frame and the live 3D camera below jumps to that shot. Use Play from this shot to run the sequence from there.
Shot 01 / 10 · 0s–5s
Rim-light reveal
- Action
- Light sweeps left to right along the spout; the title fades up.
- Camera
- 85 mm, slow push-in on the profile
- Sound
- Low sub swell, room tone, one breath of air
Shot 02 / 10 · 5s–10s
Macro on steel
- Action
- Lid lifts on a soft spring; the water line rises inside the body.
- Camera
- 100 mm macro, crane down over the lid
- Sound
- Steel shimmer, a soft lid “tock”, pour into an empty vessel
Shot 03 / 10 · 10s–15s
Landing + LCD wakes
- Action
- Kettle drops the last few centimetres and seats; the display flickers on.
- Camera
- 50 mm, low front, settles on the base corner
- Sound
- Muted landing thud, electronic wake blip
Shot 04 / 10 · 15s–19s
Knob turn
- Action
- Dial turns; the set temperature spins down and back, degree by degree.
- Camera
- 100 mm macro on the dial, slight orbit
- Sound
- Dry detent clicks, one per degree, pitched to the number
Shot 05 / 10 · 19s–24s
Cutaway glow
- Action
- Body turns translucent; heat colour rises with the reading.
- Camera
- 35 mm, half orbit around the body
- Sound
- Rising hiss and micro-bubbles, a tone that tracks temperature
Shot 06 / 10 · 24s–29s
HOLD ring
- Action
- Rear Hold switch flicks; a light ring sweeps a full circle.
- Camera
- 35 mm, top-down three-quarter, slow drift
- Sound
- Crisp switch flick, warm sustained hum
Shot 07 / 10 · 29s–34s
Balance
- Action
- Kettle lifts and rocks forward; the marker stays over the base.
- Camera
- 85 mm, locked-off side profile
- Sound
- Low whoosh on the tilt, nothing rattles
Shot 08 / 10 · 34s–40s
Slow pour
- Action
- Kettle tilts into a pour; the coffee bed blooms.
- Camera
- 100 mm, low and close on the stream
- Sound
- Thin trickle (no splash), soft fizz of the bloom
Shot 09 / 10 · 40s–46s
Colourway carousel
- Action
- Four 1.5-second hero turns, cut on the beat.
- Camera
- 50 mm, locked; the product turns
- Sound
- Four whooshes on the music beat
Shot 10 / 10 · 46s–50s
End card
- Action
- Lights settle; the end card fades up.
- Camera
- 50 mm, pull back to hero wide
- Sound
- Single warm two-note chime, music out
Loading the studio…
3D needs WebGL, which isn’t available here. The storyboard and notes still tell the whole story.
05 · Modelling & look dev
From grey boxes to the poster frame.
The kettle on this page is modelled in code: a lathed body, a swept, tapering gooseneck and a tube-swept handle. Step through the pipeline, switch colourways, and drag to orbit.
What we model to (published specs)
- 0.9 L capacity
- 1200 W (US)
- 135–212 °F / 57–100 °C, to the degree
- 60 min Hold mode
- 304 stainless steel body and lid
Temperature range is Fellow’s current spec. Some older sources list a lower minimum; it varies by model and version, so the film only shows 135–212 °F.
Loading the studio…
01 · Blockout. Grey primitives only. We lock proportions and camera distances against the published 292 × 171 × 203 mm footprint before any detail exists.
02 · Wireframe. Clean, light topology: a lathed body, a swept gooseneck that tapers to a pointed tip, and a tube-swept counterbalanced handle. Edge loops go where light will catch.
03 · Clay. One neutral material. Clay shows form, silhouette and shadow problems that colour would hide, so the client signs off shape here.
04 · Materials. Flat, even light so we judge shaders, not lighting: matte powder coat, polished copper, walnut. One shader set, switched per colourway.
05 · Lighting. Key, fill and two rims (softboxes shown). The rim is the hero: it draws the gooseneck line against black.
06 · Final. The poster frame: a lifted pour into a cone, a thin stream, steam and a warm backdrop glow. Same model, same shaders.
Clay vs final
Same model, same camera, same lights.
Both halves are rendered live from the scene above, one with the clay shader and one with the final look. Drag the handle: only the surfaces change. That’s the point of a modular pipeline: a new colourway is a shader swap, not a reshoot.
06 · Lighting
Turn the lights off one by one.
Classic three-point lighting with one change: the rim is the hero. Toggle each light and watch the live model and the plan view respond together.
Loading the studio…
07 · Animation
Play the animatic, live.
The storyboard becomes a real-time animatic on the same 3D stage, with captions, timecode and a scrubber. Drag the stage at any time to take the camera back.
Loading the studio…
Shot 01/10 · 00:00:03:00
Each ◆ is a keyframe in the scene file; the animatic you’re watching is the same data driving the real-time stage. Durations: 5 + 5 + 5 + 4 + 5 + 5 + 5 + 6 + 6 + 4 = 50 s.
08 · Sound design
Half the precision is in what you hear.
Each shot gets one sound beat. Detents click once per degree, and the pour is a thin trickle, never a splash. Press a beat to hear a quick sketch.
Music + SFX intensity across the 50 s cut
- 01
Rim-light reveal
Low sub swell, room tone, one breath of air
- 02
Macro on steel
Steel shimmer, a soft lid “tock”, pour into an empty vessel
- 03
Landing + LCD wakes
Muted landing thud, electronic wake blip
- 04
Knob turn
Dry detent clicks, one per degree, pitched to the number
- 05
Cutaway glow
Rising hiss and micro-bubbles, a tone that tracks temperature
- 06
HOLD ring
Crisp switch flick, warm sustained hum
- 07
Balance
Low whoosh on the tilt, nothing rattles
- 08
Slow pour
Thin trickle (no splash), soft fizz of the bloom
- 09
Colourway carousel
Four whooshes on the music beat
- 10
End card
Single warm two-note chime, music out
Sketches are synthesised live in your browser with the Web Audio API, a stand-in for the foley we’d record (real detents, a real lid, real water). Nothing plays until you press a button.
09 · Deliverables
One scene file, every format.
The 60-second film is cut down to 15 and 6 seconds, and the master frame is reframed for 16:9, 1:1 and 9:16 rather than re-rendered from scratch.
Numbers are storyboard shots. The 15 s cut keeps reveal → wake → heat → pour → end card; the bumper is pour + end card only.
One master frame, three aspect ratios
- 4 colourway turntables, 6 s seamless loops
- 12 hero stills from the same scene file
- 1 product-page 360° spin
- Lightweight video loops for the site (no GIFs)
10 · Measure
How we'd know the film worked.
View-through rate
We expect: A slow, beat-led edit holds people to the pour (shot 8), not just the reveal.
How we’d measure: Completion at 25/50/75/100 % on the 60 s and 15 s cuts, by placement.
Colourway clicks
We expect: The carousel and end card send viewers to a specific colourway, not the generic product page.
How we’d measure: Click-through from end card and video description to each colourway page, tagged per cut.
Precision recall
We expect: Viewers remember “to the degree” and “60-minute hold”, not just “nice kettle”.
How we’d measure: Brand-lift survey against a hold-out group, aided and unaided recall of the three features.
Asset reuse
We expect: One scene file covers every colourway and format without reshoots.
How we’d measure: Count of deliverables rendered from the master scene versus new production days.
These are the success measures we would agree with the client before launch. As a concept project, no results are claimed.
Sources for brand facts
- Red Dot: Stagg EKG ↗
- IDSA IDEA gallery: Stagg EKG ↗
- Fellow: Stagg EKG product page ↗
- Fellow: EKG instructions ↗
- Fellow: home (Everyday Magic) ↗
- TechGearLab: EKG review ↗
- Northern Teaist: EKG review ↗
- Crate & Barrel: EKG Pro Stone Blue with Walnut ↗
- Daily Coffee News: $30M Series B ↗
- Entrepreneur: Kickstarter story ↗
- Housewares: Meet Fellow ↗
- Forbes: Fellow, 2026 ↗
