Tony Bartolucci

About ten years ago my career bisected. While I was still an agency creative director I began moonlighting as a painter. In 2020 my practice outgrew my home and I rented my first studio in Brooklyn. In 2022 I moved into a larger studio that I still occupy. I paint almost every day. I’ve sold paintings to a growing client base throughout the US, Canada, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. My paintings have been exhibited in galleries in New York, Richmond, Warsaw, and Amsterdam.

When New York Lottery's Powerball doubled it's starting jackpots, winners would be the kind of rich where money was no object. The Lottery needed a campaign to help inspire the imaginations of New Yorkers and drive ticket sales.

So we launched "Yeah, that kind of rich." Instead of showing rich people clichés like butlers, limousines and yachts we showed winners enjoying their usual passions but in a much bigger way.

CREDITS: Associate Creative Director: Tony Bartolucci; Associate Creative Director: Colin Lapin; Agency: DDB New York; Chief Creative Officer: Matt Eastwood; Executive Creative Director: Menno Kluin; Group Creative Director: Rich Sharp; Group Creative Director: Mike Sullivan; Head of Production: Ed Zazzera; Executive Producer: Walter Brindak; Photographer: Brad Harris; Art Buyer: Jane Piampiano; Project Manager: Julie Evcimen

“Garage,” “Music,” “Driveway”: Director: Steve Miller; Producer: Carla Tate; Production Company: Radical Media

Quitting”: Director: Jim Jenkins; Editor: John Piccolo; Producer: Ralph Laucella; Production Company: O Positive

“Pet Store,” “Pool Boy,” “Roommates”: Director: David Shane; Producer: Ralph Laucella; Production Company: O Positive

We completely rebranded ASICS globally.

'Want it More' is a call to arms for all athletes who are serious about a goal. Getting better in sports is about choices, whether you choose to work out on a night that you normally would go party, or choose fitness over vanity. We expressed this with an earnest open letter to athletes everywhere paired with visceral, unpolished film and images of athletes who Want it More.

Launch film: Cannes Lions Shortlist, TV & Cinema Film 2016

The Guardian said: "The line - "Want it more" - makes Nike's "Just do it" sound laidback, flaky and out of date". 

CREDITS: Art Director: Tony Bartolucci; Copywriter: Joe Craig; Agency: 180 Amsterdam; Chief Creative Officer: Al Moseley; Executive Creative Director: Dave Canning; Executive Creative Director: Dan Treichel; Agency Producer: Bethany Papenbrock; Director: Henry Alex Rubin; Director of Photography: Ken Seng; Editor: Spencer Ferszt; Colourist: Jean-Clément Soret; Producer: Ben Link; Production Company: Smuggler; Photographer: Paul Cocks; Retoucher: Loupe Amsterdam

Calmezzi is a cannabis beverage made to be mixed into delectable cocktails, and shared while in the good company of friends and family.

I designed the identity including the hand-drawn logo, numerous illustrations of groups hanging out together, bottle labels, packaging, and other branded elements.

Dinner party and bar cart photos
by Wonderkind Co.

When Mel the Bakery relocated from Manhattan to their new, bigger space in Hudson, NY, I created four original pieces of artwork that hang proudly on the bakery walls and have been repurposed for use on merchandise and social media.

Mel was already famous for their bread and pastries (they’re a James Beard semifinalist for Outstanding Baker and have been called “Essential” and “One of Manhattan’s Best” by Eater New York), so they asked me to create artwork that would nudge customers to go beyond bread and pastries to order additional menu items like sandwiches and coffee drinks (they have a full service barista). 

The paintings that resulted are cheeky, exaggerated and get straight to the point, and they have become a permanent and essential part of the bakery’s atmosphere.

When Beat Saber, the virtual reality rhythm game, launched The Weeknd music pack, we were asked to excite both Beat Saber and The Weeknd fans. So we tapped album artist Robert Beatty to create surrealistic key visuals, and music video director Christian Breslauer to shoot a dusky hero film. The film features an unsuspecting club-goer who is thrust into a Beat Saber battle against none other than The Weeknd himself, in the form of enigmatic block-slinging hands.

CREDITS: Creative Director: Tony Bartolucci; Agency: Special Guest; Executive Creative Director: Aaron Duffy; Creative Director: Sarah Sherman; ACD/Writer: Jason Paul; Designer: Pimm Buddhari; Designer: Ward Kamel; Account Director: Tazri Afrin Harris; Account Manager: Sasha Pierre; Agency Producer: Matthew Snetzko; Agency Post Producer: Joe Maire; Project Manager: Lauren Moroz; Illustrator: Robert Beatty; Illustration Rep: Big Active; Production Company: London Alley; Director: Christian Breslauer; Editor: Luis Caraza; Executive Producer: Sandy Haddad; Line Producer, Eric Watson; Choreographer: Carolina Patiño; Executive Creative Director, Meta: Jason Sperling; Creative Directors, Meta: Dafna Garber, Nicolas Randall; Producer, Meta: Dustin Freeman; Designer, Meta: Kim Jones; Producer, Beat Saber: Tandy Tatter

It’s beautiful up here. The problem is, everyone is staring down at their phones. So, Bose and Amazon introduced headphones that let you walk around heads up and hands-free. With built-in Alexa voice control, you can be inspired by the world around you.

CREDITS: Creative Director: Tony Bartolucci; Creative Director: Patrick Conlon; Agency: Grey New York; Worldwide CCO: John Patroulis; Chief Creative Officer: Jeff Stamp; Group Creative Director: Asan Aslam; Agency Producer: Sam Helfer; Agency Producer: Charlie Stillman; Production Company: Prettybird; Executive Producer: Hannah Cooper; Director Tom Noakes; Edit House: Exile; Editor: Conor O'Neill

When you put on the PS VR headset, you feel like you’re not just playing the game, but living it. So we showed a player inside the game, living every detail of extraordinary new worlds.

PS VR went on to sell out faster than any piece of hardware in PlayStation's history.

CREDITS: Art Director: Tony Bartolucci; Copywriter: Joe Craig; Agency: 180 Amsterdam; Chief Creative Officer: Al Moseley; Executive Creative Director: Dave Canning; Executive Creative Director: Dan Treichel; Creative Director: Martin Beswick; Creative Director: Stephane LeCoq; Agency Producer: Bethany Papenbrock; Director/Production Company: ManvsMachine

Heineken's brand portfolio includes many of the world's most beloved beers. One of those is Soproni, Hungary’s best-selling beer that is exported all over the world. In Eastern Europe, close friendship and togetherness are cornerstones of culture — and beer is the glue that helps enable that togetherness.

To show this we conceived the idea of a 'Beer Family,' which is better than your real family because it's the family you choose to drink beer with. To launch the campaign we created this epic film celebrating the many different beer families out there.

CREDITS: Art Director: Tony Bartolucci; Copywriter: Joe Craig; Agency: 180 Amsterdam; Chief Creative Officer: Al Moseley; Executive Creative Director: Dave Canning; Executive Creative Director: Dan Treichel; Agency Producer: Neil Henry; Director: Neil Harris; Editor: John Mayes; Editor: Hilco Beukema; Colourist: Jean-Clément Soret; Producer: Jason Scanlon; Production Company: Smuggler; Music: Butter Music + Sound

I worked with adidas Brand Design and Resn to help shape the visual design for the global launch of Speedfactory, a new high-speed, tailor-made shoe concept from adidas. The launch included a global 360 advertising campaign, as well as global retail and interactive installations in London, Paris, New York, LA, Tokyo and Shanghai.

The campaign required the thoughtful design of hundreds of individual elements that all worked together to form a cohesive presence around the globe.

CREDITS: Designers: Tony Bartolucci, Angie Bac, Stevijn Van Olst, Rasmus Stenbergh, Sebastian Thomsen, Marloes Van Dijken, Gaby Poelmann; Executive Creative Director, adidas: Nick Cline; Creative Lead, adidas: Anne Coté; Producers, adidas: Julien Lauret, Samara Van der Valk, Katarina Pepichov; Creative Directors, Resn: Kris Hermansson, Simon Jullien; Online Dev, RESN: Stevijn Van Olst, Hans-Eric Noyons; Producers, Resn: Mark Wordsworth, Jena Fenwick, Lotte Meijer; Film Editor, Stink Studio: Julien Maingois; Animation, Stink Studio: Stevijn Van Olst, Dario Cavaliere; Photography: Jan Van-Edert; Retoucher, Loupe Studio: Ferdy Harmsen; Agency: adidas Brand Design; Consumer Activation Agency: Resn; Consumer Activation Production: Fiction Factory; Retail Agency: Tom Cat

For years, Crust & Crumb sold baked goods out of their Airstream trailer at a weekend market in Prospect, KY.

In 2024 they moved into a large brick and mortar and asked me to make a series of seven original paintings for their newly renovated café.

The images were printed on cups, stickers, packaging and staff shirts.

The artwork has been a hit with staff and customers. Since the initial paintings I’ve created a new illustration every season and my work is now an integral part of the cafe’s identity.

All artwork has been made by hand, with paint and ink on paper.

Unknowns is a brand strategy company led by Nelson Frietas, a modern marketer and thought leader who for three decades has served as an strategic advisor and visionary the globe’s most iconic brands, across every category including Levi’s, Apple, American Express, Google and Microsoft.

The company is driven by a belief that the unknowns (undiscovered things) about a brand carry the most worth once light is shed on them.

With that in mind, I created an identity and visual system centered around flowing organic forms that represent these hidden unknowns hiding just beneath the surface.

The interplay of the murky organic forms with clear, sharp typography visually suggests the process of revealing a brand’s unknowns and thereby unleashing its full potential.

An elite team of scientists within ASICS Institute of Sports Science (I.S.S.) were given carte blanche to reinvent the running shoe from the ground up. They spared no expense, ignored all conventions and the result was the launch of ASICS's most revolutionary running shoe ever, Metarun.

For the global launch we created an embellished version of the real ASICS I.S.S. lab in Kobe, Japan, and used it as the setting for film, print and social media. We started with a teaser campaign and then revealed the shoe to elite runners around the world.

CREDITS: Art Director: Tony Bartolucci; Copywriter: Joe Craig; Agency: 180 Amsterdam; Chief Creative Officer: Al Moseley; Executive Creative Director: Dave Canning; Executive Creative Director: Dan Treichel; Creative Director: Dean Maryon; Photographer: Bart Oomes; Retoucher: Loupe Amsterdam; Film Production Company: Post Panic; Director: Onur Senturk; Retail: Green Room Design

On a shoestring budget, I co-wrote and directed this film, which racked up over a million views on YouTube in the first week.

The idea: with 1 in 8 Americans suffering from hunger, chances are you see a hungry person every day and don’t even know it.

YouTube and Feeding America teamed up to invite several agencies to a competition, submitting films tailored to specific audience profiles from YouTube's sophisticated audience tool. The videos would all launch simultaneously and the winner would be determined by effectiveness – how long people stayed watching, and total views.

Our film beat the submissions of all other agencies.

Featured: SXSW Selection 2019

CREDITS: Creative Director/Director: Tony Bartolucci; Creative Director/Writer: Patrick Conlon; Agency: Grey New York; Worldwide CCO: John Patroulis; Chief Creative Officer: Rob Lenois; Associate Creative Director: Lillian O'Connor; Associate Creative Director: Brett Simone; Agency Producer: Dante DaParma; Production Company: Townhouse; Director of Photography: Owen Donovan; Editor: Tom Scherma

We created a unique event that was the first to combine immersive theater and running.

Audience members, a group of 60 influencers from around the world, ran 5k through a maze of iconic downtown LA locations, as theatrical performances and interactions unfolded all around them.

The experience was inspired by the film noir genre and told the story of a shape-shifting femme fatale.

The campaign generated 687,000+ positive comments in just 3 days and 27.4 million media impressions, including Vanity Fair, Glamour, Fox News, Yahoo and Runner’s Radar.

CREDITS: Creative Director: Tony Bartolucci; Senior Copywriter: Joe Craig; Copywriter: Chase Kimball; Agency: 180 Amsterdam; Chief Creative Officer: Al Moseley; Executive Creative Director: Dave Canning; Executive Creative Director: Dan Treichel; Designer: Celia Armitage; Agency Head of Production: Bethany Papenbrock; Agency Executive Producer: Colin Pueschner; Agency Producer: Eline de Roo; Production Company: HELO; Executive Creative Director for HELO: Tom Webster; Executive Producer: Brendan Kiernan; Executive Producer: James Okumura; Immersive experience created by: Wilderness; Experiential Director: Annie Saunders; Experiential Producer: Mitch Kirsch; Film Director: Zach Guerra; Film producer: Keith Carlsen; Editor: Noah Kistler; Director of Photography: Michael Svitak

Because Gaël Monfils doesn’t fit the mould of a traditional tennis player we removed him from the court to an unexpected environment, letting his trademark moves and larger-than-life character shine.

Here he uses all speed, agility and his ASICS Gel-Resolution 6 shoes to outplay a group of cunning ball-launching opponents.

The commercial aired on all major TV channels globally and featured on Eurosport throughout the clay court season.

CREDITS: Art Director: Tony Bartolucci; Copywriter: Joe Craig; Agency: 180 Amsterdam; Chief Creative Officer: Al Moseley; Creative Director: Dean Maryon; Head of Production: Susan Cook; Agency Producer: Neil Henry; Director: Thor Saevarsson; Editor: Fiona Fuchs; Production Company: Brenninkmeijer & Isaacs; Executive Producer: Jelani Isaacs; Producer: Sytske Rijkens; Photographer: Ben Ingham; Retoucher: Loupe

We needed to attract a young audience in key cities in Europe, the UK, Russia and Africa. That’s a lot of places and a lot of cultures to talk to.

The campaign started with a simple idea, “One with the City.” It’s about being confident in your environment, being one with the places you lived, worked and loved, and the landmarks that define the voice of culture.

From this idea, we gave birth to a handsome figure whose body parts are made of the beloved city landmarks of the cultures we're talking to. City Man, took over the city centers of major markets like Amsterdam, Milan, Madrid, London, Berlin, Moscow and Cape Town. We put him in cool places that cool people go to. People took pictures with him, tried to buy him in retail stores, and somehow became a piece of culture himself... with swagger.

CREDITS: Art Director: Tony Bartolucci; Art Director: Lachlan Palmer-Hubbard; Copywriter: Chase Kimball; Agency: 180 Amsterdam; Chief Creative Officer: Al Moseley; Executive Creative Director: Dave Canning; Executive Creative Director: Dan Treichel; Creative Director: Adam Noel; Creative Director: Martin Terhart; Illustrator: Andy Rementer; Animator: Andy Baker; Agency Producer: Claire Ford; Animation Production Company: Hornet

New York Lottery created an app that lets players check their numbers from anywhere on their smartphone. To inform New Yorkers, we told a story about the perils of not knowing you're a millionaire.

In this film a Lottery winner is still working at his job in a doll factory because he doesn't have the app.

CREDITS: Associate Creative Director: Tony Bartolucci; Associate Creative Director: Colin Lapin; Agency: DDB New York; Chief Creative Officer: Matt Eastwood; Executive Creative Director: Menno Kluin; Creative Director: Rich Sharp; Creative Director: Mike Sullivan; Director: David Gaddie; Head of Production: Ed Zazzera; Executive Producer: Walter Brindak; Executive Producer: Angela Bowen; Producer: Zac Zimmerman; Production Company: The Colony

For this headline campaign we wanted something memorable featuring unique typography. So we used stacks of real $100 bills to sculpt an entire set of characters, which we then photographed and used to build the headlines.

CREDITS: Associate Creative Director: Tony Bartolucci; Associate Creative Director: Colin Lapin; Agency: DDB New York; Chief Creative Officer: Matt Eastwood; Executive Creative Director: Menno Kluin; Group Creative Director: Rich Sharp; Group Creative Director: Mike Sullivan; Designer/Typographer: Craig Ward; Designer/Typographer: Juan Carlos Pagan; Copywriter: Jeff Scardino; Photographer: Bill Wadman; Assistant Designer: Niral Parekh; Assistant Typographer: Joao Unzer; Assistant Typographer: Rodrigo DeCastro; Video Director/Editor: Alec Helm; Video Score: Justin Tricomi

Win For Life scratch-off games keep paying winners for as long as they live. So, the longer they live, the more they get paid.

To get this point across to New Yorkers, we created a digital campaign starring Nana, an overprotective grandmother determined to keep winners alive so they could keep making money.

After a user liked her Facebook page, Nana would ‘take a look’ at their profile, and then the overprotection would begin. For the next few weeks they would get cautionary messages and safety tip videos from Nana, which were personalized based on their recent Facebook activity.

CREDITS: Associate Creative Director: Tony Bartolucci; Art Director: Michael Kushner; Copywriters: Luke Carmody, Daniel Paredes; Agency: DDB New York; Chief Creative Officer: Matt Eastwood; Executive Creative Director: Joe Cianciotto; Creative Director: Rich Sharp; Creative Director: Mike Sullivan; Director: Jonathan Klein; Head of Production: Ed Zazzera; Executive Producer: Heidi Baltzer; Production Company: O Positive

During the holidays, New York Lottery wanted to encourage New Yorkers to give scratch-offs as small tokens to acquaintances, coworkers, doormen… people just outside their inner gift circles.

We wrote a bunch of festive holiday headlines and tapped typographer Sean Freeman to help us create a custom typeface, built by hand from real old-fashioned bulb strands.

The posters ran all over New York City, spreading holiday cheer and tears of joy to all who saw them. The tears even rolled down their cheeks and onto their festive sweaters.

CREDITS: Associate Creative Director: Tony Bartolucci; Associate Creative Director: Colin Lapin; Agency: DDB New York; Chief Creative Officer: Matt Eastwood; Executive Creative Director: Menno Kluin; Creative Director: Rich Sharp; Creative Director: Mike Sullivan; Designer/Typographer: Sean Freeman; Designer/Typographer: Juan Carlos Pagan; Video Editor: Melanie Meditz

We created a playful headline campaign that ran in major US cities including New York, Boston, Washington DC, San Francisco and Seattle.

In New York, we launched a massive billboard wall in Times Square, a poster domination of Grand Central Station, and a "stream of consciousness" poster series in the Port Authority hallway that engaged commuters with a thought-provoking story as they made their way to work.

Designer: Tony Bartolucci; Agency: BBDO New York; Chief Creative Officers: David Lubars, Bill Bruce; Creative Directors: Linda Honan, David Carter; Art Director: Alex Shulhafer; Copywriter: Kara Goodrich; Retoucher: Resolution

Lilly wanted to familiarize physicians with their portfolio of diabetes products, emphasizing how easy it is for patients to transition from one medication in the portfolio to the next.

Leafing through pharmaceutical trade magazines, which are a sea of stock imagery, we saw an opportunity to create something fresh that would stand out to physicians. We used bold illustrations to convey simple visual metaphors.

We color-coded the ads based on the product’s existing color palettes, giving each product its own recognizable color scheme.

CREDITS: Art Director: Tony Bartolucci; Copywriter: Joe Craig; Agency: 180 Amsterdam; Chief Creative Officer: Al Moseley; Creative Director: Dean Maryon; Illustrator: Rami Niemi; Illustration Rep: Agent Pekka

We wanted runners to break their repetitive running routines and explore while they ran. 'It's a big world. Go run it.' reminded them that there's a lot more to running than a loop around the local park.

For print and OOH we created inspiring running landscapes and placed them on the bottom of shoes, turning ordinary product shots into tiny running worlds.

CREDITS: Art Director: Tony Bartolucci; Copywriter: Joe Craig; Agency: 180 Amsterdam; Chief Creative Officer: Al Moseley; Creative Director: Dean Maryon; CGI and Retouching: Smoke & Mirrors

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