A director’s treatment is where an idea first takes visual shape. The story and creative vision come from the director and the designer builds the visual language around it. The imagery, the typography, the rhythm of the pages create a unique identity of the pitch. The treatment becomes a design piece in its own right when the two work well together.

Irina Dengina designed this treatment for director Evgeny Nikitin to launch the WEY 05, the first model in a new premium brand of hybrid crossovers.

Evgeny named his idea “The Poetry of Meditative Hedonism”. He saw a car commercial where the aesthetics of photography come to life, and each frame stays on screen long enough to be a photograph again. Fellini’s 8½ and La Dolce Vita meet Barthes’ Camera Lucida, Vermeer and Friedrich.

Irina carried that idea into the design and made the treatment read like a magazine. Large serif headlines and wide-spaced capitals set the tone while white editorial spreads give way to dark cinematic images that fill the page. Every image is chosen and placed like a page from a fashion editorial. The layout is quiet and precise, so the commercial is already there before a single shot exists. Even the format plays along. It’s built as one long page you scroll through like a magazine, not a slide deck.

The treatment feels like the first chapter if you look at it next to the finished commercial. The mood is all there already in the images, the type and the composition.

For director Evgeny Nikitin's WEY 05 car commercial, the document doesn't pitch - it inhabits. The commercial already exists before a single frame is filmed.

Credits
Director: Evgeny Nikitin
Graphic design: Irina Dengina
Writer: Anya Sleptsova
Production company: Fresh
Client: WEY

Irina Dengina is a graphic designer who specialises in director’s treatments for advertising and music videos. Since 2019 she has worked with directors and production companies in over ten countries for brands such as Spotify, McDonald’s, Škoda, Samsung, O2 and Sports Direct.

irinadengina.com