Coldplay One Lens
Twenty-five years of Coldplay photographs by Victoria Smith deserved more than a listing on a generic shop page. We built the launch site, where buying the book or a fine-art print feels like part of the work, then made the film that brought readers to it.
The site
What we built first: coldplayonelensbook.com.
The book site
Book and photography campaign
Coldplay One Lens
25 Years of Photographs by Victoria Smith
A dedicated digital launch that gives One Lens, 25 years of Coldplay photographs, a world of its own.
The brief
One Lens, a book of Coldplay photographs spanning 25 years, needed a launch equal to the work — not a product listing on a generic shop page.
The tension
The book needed more than a product listing: it needed an experience strong enough to carry the photography while making purchase and print pathways unmistakable.
What we decided
Let the photography establish the atmosphere, then make every commercial action feel like a natural continuation of the work rather than an interruption to it.
What we built
- A focused book, gallery, video, photographer, and contact experience
- Book purchasing through Bookshop.org
- Selected photography linked to fine-art print destinations
- S3-compatible DigitalOcean Spaces with AWS Signature V4
- Contact review, campaign analytics, and protected administration
The result
A dedicated site for the book, photography, film, and purchase paths, with prints and direct audience response in the same world.
The finished campaign brings together the book, photography, film, the photographer’s story, Bookshop.org purchasing, related fine-art prints, and direct audience response.
Ownership
The campaign is a purpose-built application with its own media tools, audience analytics, contact administration, and deployable production stack — not a page constrained by a publishing template.
How it runs
A containerized application, PostgreSQL and Prisma analytics, managed media, and protected administration support the campaign.
Technical specification
Architecture, systems, data, and how it is hosted and run.
- 01
Application architecture
A purpose-built Next.js application gives the book an independent editorial and commercial presence, with responsive routes for the book, photography, video, photographer profile, purchase pathways, and contact.
- 02
Media system
A custom S3-compatible storage layer connects the application to DigitalOcean Spaces using AWS Signature Version 4 request signing. It supports protected uploads, time-limited signed access, asset listing, and optimized photography and video derivatives for responsive galleries.
- 03
Analytics and contact operations
PostgreSQL and Prisma support first-party campaign analytics. Contact submissions use a separate persistent JSON store with new, read, and archived states, while protected administration keeps audience response and asset operations outside the public experience.
- 04
Deployable production stack
A multi-stage Docker image and production Compose definition run the application alongside PostgreSQL 16, with health checks and persistent volumes for both analytics and contact data.
The ad campaign
With the book’s site built, we made the launch film to bring readers to it.
The launch film
Social film for Instagram and paid social
Coldplay One Lens
With the book’s site built, SI made the launch film to bring readers to it: promotional creative for the release of Coldplay One Lens, the photography book by Victoria Smith.
The brief called for a tasteful social film that could introduce the book, honor twenty-five years of photographs, and work naturally across Instagram and paid social ahead of publication.
Services
Coldplay One LensLink
Fall 2026
Project details
Services
Original photographs by Victoria Smith
Currently accepting select projects
Let’s make it.
Launching a book, a record, or a collection? We build the world it lives in and make the film that announces it.
We build and deploy what you need so you can create and ship what you want. Then we make the ads and place them.