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Cristiano Maifrè

Cristiano Maifrè (born 25 July 1974) is an Italian Creative & Art Director, as well as video maker and photographer. He has more than 25 years of experience and his hallmark is multidisciplinarity. Currently a freelancer, he has worked for over 20 years in advertising agencies in Milan.

Cristiano Maifrè in 2023

Born

Cristiano Maifrè
25 July 1974 (age 48)
Milan, Italy

Occupation

Creative & Art Director, Videomaker, Photographer

Fields

Art Direction, Advertising, Interface & Web Design, Branding, Video Making & Editing, Motion Graphics, Social Marketing, Photography

Experience

26 years

Awards

13 🏆

Workplaces (hired)

FCB Milan, Digital Machine, Italiabrandgroup, Bitmama, Icon Medialab, Zodiak Active, Rockol, Mondadori, Studio Fantasy

Agencies (freelance)

Bitmama, Havas, AKQA, McCann Health, Avvio Reply, Like Reply, The Pop Agency, Akinda

Children

2

Work Experience
Year Workplace Role
2018-Now Freelance Creative & Art Director, Videomaker, Photographer
2017 Digital Machine Creative Director
2017 Italiabrandgroup Digital Creative Director
2012-2017 FCB Milan Senior Art Director
2012 Zodiak Active Senior Art Director
2003-2012 Bitmama Senior Art Director
1998-2003 Icon Medialab Digital Art Director
1997-1998 Rockol Digital Art Director
1995-1997 Mondadori Graphic Designer
1993-1995 Studio Fantasy Assistant Photographer
Honors and Awards
  • In 2005 he won the 🥇 first prize of the Bardi Web Awards in the category e-Business Services for the design of the Genialloyd website.
  • In 2005 he won the 🥇 first prize of the Interactive Key Awards in the category Best Performance for the design of the Todomondo’s website.
  • In 2005 he won the 🥈 second prize of the X Mediastars in the category Internet for the design of the Todomondo’s website.
  • In 2002 he won the 🥇 first prize of the VII Mediastars in the category Internet for the design of the Sapere.it website.
  • In 2002 he won the ⭐️ Special Star of the VII Mediastars in the category Concept Design for the design of the Sapere.it website.
  • In 2002 he won the ⭐️ Special Star of the VII Mediastars in the category Usability for the design of the Sapere.it website.
  • In 2002 he won the 🥇 first prize of the Gran Prix Pubblicità in the category Novità for the design of the Sapere.it website.
  • In 2002 he won the 🥇 first prize of the Premio Yahoo Italia in the category Risorse for the design of the Sapere.it website.
Advertising campaigns
Between 2015 and 2017 he partecipated to the Cannes Lions festival with 3 campaigns:

  • Nivea Goodnight, a special ad that turns the Nivea tin into a magical, scented night-light for children
  • Moms don’t quit, a campaign that raises awareness around the problem of fired mothers
  • A Case Film Like This, a meta case-history to reverse the sad trend of Cannes Lions case films

Other notable campaigns are Member get Member and Hello World Manifesto for Hello Bank, Godetevi l’attesa for Findus, Slide your Way for Huawei, Aquilea Sonno, Shope for UNHCR, The Best Moment of the Game for Jacuzzi.

Each of these campaigns involved Maifrè both in the concept and the accomplishment. His multidisciplinary approach makes him particularly suitable for advertising campaigns since he can specifically decline the Big idea into almost every kind of media.

Maifrè with collegues in Cannes (June 2015)

Interface & Web Design
Since the early 2000’s, Maifrè designs websites and digital interfaces for hundreds of clients within dozens of industries, always keeping his style up-to-date.

During this time he won 12 awards in the major european festivals.

In the beginning of his career he designed various websites for EMI and BMG music labels’s artists, such as Ustmamò, Casino Royale, Almamegretta, Afterhours, Negrita.

In 2002 he designed Sapere.it, the online version of the DeAgostini encyclopedia. The website won 5 awards.

Artemide website (2008)

In 2005 he designed the Todomondo website, one of the first online tour operators. In the same year the website won two awards, in the categories Internet and Best Performance. Maifrè kept working on the user experience and the design of Todomondo, througout the following years. In 2008 Todomondo invoiced 70 million euros only for that year, setting an european record for a newborn tour operator. [without source]

In the same year he designed the Genialloyd website, breaking all the known usability rules and won 1 award.

In 2008 he designed the Artemide website, winner of 3 awards.

SkySport for iPad (2010)

Two years later he won another award with the SkySport for iPad app for the German market, the first iPad app for Sky. Since at that time Apple had not yet published the iPad app design guidelines, Cristiano had to rely only on 4 screenshots that Apple published on its website. Rumors says that Steve Jobs himself praised the app (along with 4 others) during an interview. [without source]

In 2010 he designed Barsport for Niveamen, a playful community for men’s greatest passion: football. Alongside the years spent on the project, he worked with Clarence Seedorf and Antonio Cassano, using them in two online games.

Palazzo Falconi website (2022)

Cristiano often designs and code directly in WordPress, heavily customizing the Salient theme with his CSS and Javascript skills, always optimizing the websites with responsive design, making them look correctly in desktops, tablets and smartphones. He’s very familiar with domains, MySQL databases, SEO, social snippets, etc.

Video Making
Cristiano is the “one man band” kind of video maker, since he takes care of every aspect of the project: strategy, idea, script, dialogues, storyboard, casting, lighting, shooting, editing, color correction, export.

According to his philosophy, this makes the project consistent throughout the whole production process.

To make this work, he meticulously plans every detail of each phase, each time fine-tuning more and more the process.

In 2015 he published his personal view of Expo 2015, getting the attention of various online newspapers.

In 2018 he shot F.lli Cerea meet Elisenda for Esselunga, where Enrico e Roberto Cerea (3 Michelin stars chefs) share their panettone’s recipe with Elisenda, the high pastry of Esselunga. The video is a success and the next year he shot another video with the Cerea, this time for the colomba (easter cake).

Video & Photo gear (2019)

In 2020 he shot Ferwood Virtual Tour and Ferwood Live Demo and for the first time he added indoor drone shots to his works.

Other notable videos are Antidoto (2021) and Alien Attack (2022).

Scripting, Video Editing and Motion Branding
Since 2012, Cristiano wrote and edited a lot of videos: video manifesto, promotional videos, motion branding for corporate events, video case-history and many more. He strongly believes that if the person that writes is the same person that produces, the result will benefit from all perspectives. In these projects he uses existing videos (provided by the clients or downloaded from stock websites) to create a story.

Some examples are Skin Regimen Manifesto, The Best Moment of the Game for Jacuzzi, Lung Tales for Roche, A Case Film Like This for Shutterstock.

Web Eyewear for Marcolin (2022)

Since 2021 he specialized in corporate events, where he creates a complete kit for companies including a video manifesto, a motivational video for employees, animated flyers, speakers intro videos, etc.

Some examples are F/Youture for BPER, Dare for Rare for Novo Nordisk, Looking Forward for Web Eyewear (Marcolin), What is Digical for you and Digical Story for Intesa Sanpaolo.

Dare for Rare for Novo Nordisk (2022)

In these projects Cristiano uses technologies like motion and perspective tracking, 3D, advanced masking and sound design.

Social Marketing

Most of Cristiano’s projects include social media strategies, since 2010.

He produced social media contents for many clients.

Some of them are Alitalia, Canada Goose, Findus, Nivea, Nivea Men, Reckitt Benckiser, Bolton, Q8, Kinder, Michael Page, Seven, Durex, Tim, Huawei, Peugeot, Ferrero, Citroen, Mondelez, Vorverk, RCS, Virgin Active, Technogym.

Instagram stories for Canada Goose (2019)

Photography
His career started with photography in 1993.

He has been the assistant photographer of Roberto Ghislandi, Massimo Gilieri and Graziano Villa.

In 2015 he published “Marrakesh Sunset” on the National Geographic website.

Even if his job evolved into art direction and advertising, his love for photography kept growing becoming a fundamental layer of his actual occupation, becoming part of his creative offer in 2017.

One of the first commissioned photography project has been Sguardi d’Energia for Roche, in 2017, a rich set of portraits with the aim of helping women affected by ovarian cancer to repossess their beauty.

At the same time he produced a reportage of those women during the make-up preparatory at the shooting.

Marrakesh Sunset, published by National Geographic (2015)

Since 2022 he is working on a collection titled “Brands vs Humans” where he juxtaposes the two as if they actually acts together, in a freeze frame. One of his dreams is to exhibit this collection in a gallery.

During the pandemic he composed a collection called “One” where, in places usually crowded, there was only one subject. The project is still ongoing with some tricks based on tripod, long exposure and ND filters.

Brands vs Humans #12, Dubrovnik, 2016

When, during an event, clients need both video and photos, he usually attach his second or third camera to a double shoulder strap.

Cristiano Maifrè

Cristiano Maifrè (born 25 July 1974) is an Italian Creative & Art Director, as well as video maker and photographer. He has more than 25 years of experience and his hallmark is multidisciplinarity. Currently a freelancer, he has worked for over 20 years in advertising agencies in Milan.

Work Experience

Year

Workplace

Role

2018 ⟶ Now

Creative & Art Director, Videomaker, Photographer

2017

Creative Director

2017

Digital Creative Director

2012 ⟶ 2017

Senior Art Director

2012

Senior Art Director

2003 ⟶ 2012

Senior Art Director

1998 ⟶ 2003

Digital Art Director

1997 ⟶ 1998

Digital Art Director

1995 ⟶ 1997

Graphic Designer

1993 ⟶ 1995

Assistant Photographer

Cristiano Maifrè in 2023

Born

Cristiano Maifrè
25 July 1974 (age 48)
Milan, Italy

Occupation

Creative & Art Director, Videomaker, Photographer

Fields

Art Direction, Advertising, Interface & Web Design, Branding, Video Making & Editing, Motion Graphics, Social Marketing, Photography

Experience

26 years

Awards

13 🏆

Workplaces (hired)

FCB Milan, Digital Machine, Italiabrandgroup, Bitmama, Icon Medialab, Zodiak Active, Rockol, Mondadori, Studio Fantasy

Agencies (freelance)

Bitmama, Havas, AKQA, McCann Health, Avvio Reply, Like Reply, The Pop Agency, Akinda

Children

2

Honors and Awards

  • In 2010 he won the 🥇 first prize of the Kress Awards in the category Web/Mobile for the design of the Sky Sport’s iPad app.
  • In 2006 he won the 🥇 first prize of the Interactive Key Awards in the category Family & Lifestyle for the design of the Artemide’s website.
  • In 2006 he won the 🥈 second prize of the XI Mediastars in the category Internet for the design of the Artemide’s website.
  • In 2006 he won the 🥈 second prize of the Bardi Web Awards in the category Communication Driven for the design of the Artemide’s website.
  • In 2005 he won the 🥇 first prize of the Bardi Web Awards in the category e-Business Services for the design of the Genialloyd website.
  • In 2005 he won the 🥇 first prize of the Interactive Key Awards in the category Best Performance for the design of the Todomondo’s website.
  • In 2005 he won the 🥈 second prize of the X Mediastars in the category Internet for the design of the Todomondo’s website.
  • In 2002 he won the 🥇 first prize of the VII Mediastars in the category Internet for the design of the Sapere.it website.
  • In 2002 he won the ⭐️ Special Star of the VII Mediastars in the category Concept Design for the design of the Sapere.it website.
  • In 2002 he won the ⭐️ Special Star of the VII Mediastars in the category Usability for the design of the Sapere.it website.
  • In 2002 he won the 🥇 first prize of the Gran Prix Pubblicità in the category Novità for the design of the Sapere.it website.
  • In 2002 he won the 🥇 first prize of the Premio Yahoo Italia in the category Risorse for the design of the Sapere.it website.

Advertising campaigns

Between 2015 and 2017 he partecipated to the Cannes Lions festival with 3 campaigns:

  • Nivea Goodnight, a special ad that turns the Nivea tin into a magical, scented night-light for children
  • Moms don’t quit, a campaign that raises awareness around the problem of fired mothers
  • A Case Film Like This, a meta case-history to reverse the sad trend of Cannes Lions case films

Other notable campaigns are Member get Member and Hello World Manifesto for Hello Bank, Godetevi l’attesa for Findus, Slide your Way for Huawei, Aquilea Sonno, Shope for UNHCR, The Best Moment of the Game for Jacuzzi.

Maifrè with collegues in Cannes (June 2015)

Each of these campaigns involved Maifrè both in the concept and the accomplishment. His multidisciplinary approach makes him particularly suitable for advertising campaigns since he can specifically decline the Big idea into almost every kind of media.

Interface & Web Design

Artemide website (2008)

Since the early 2000’s, Maifrè designs websites and digital interfaces for hundreds of clients within dozens of industries, always keeping his style up-to-date.

During this time he won 12 awards in the major european festivals.

In the beginning of his career he designed various websites for EMI and BMG music labels’s artists, such as Ustmamò, Casino Royale, Almamegretta, Afterhours, Negrita.

In 2002 he designed Sapere.it, the online version of the DeAgostini encyclopedia. The website won 5 awards.

SkySport for iPad (2010)

In 2005 he designed the Todomondo website, one of the first online tour operators. In the same year the website won two awards, in the categories Internet and Best Performance. Maifrè kept working on the user experience and the design of Todomondo, througout the following years. In 2008 Todomondo invoiced 70 million euros only for that year, setting an european record for a newborn tour operator. [without source]

In the same year he designed the Genialloyd website, breaking all the known usability rules and won 1 award.

In 2008 he designed the Artemide website, winner of 3 awards.

Two years later he won another award with the SkySport for iPad app for the German market, the first iPad app for Sky. Since at that time Apple had not yet published the iPad app design guidelines, Cristiano had to rely only on 4 screenshots that Apple published on its website. Rumors says that Steve Jobs himself praised the app (along with 4 others) during an interview. [without source]

In 2010 he designed Barsport for Niveamen, a playful community for men’s greatest passion: football. Alongside the years spent on the project, he worked with Clarence Seedorf and Antonio Cassano, using them in two online games.

Palazzo Falconi (2022)

In 2011, one night, he downloaded the Nike Better World one page website and hacked it, turning it into the prototype for the Ferrero Boutique website, for the France market. By that time, the parallax effect was an absolute innovation. On top of that, he has exploited all the HTML5 potential and designed a superb experience, making Ferrero pralines literally rain into the tray with an animation that, until then, was only possible through the use of Flash.

Between 2003 and 2023 he designed a lot of other websites including Alitalia, Agenzia delle Entrate, Borsa Italiana, Bluvacanze, Bol, Consob, Edison, Ferwood, Folc, Fondazione Zegna, Lamborghini Gallardo, London Stock Exchange, Palazzo Falconi, Reply, Skyn, Style&Care.

Cristiano often designs and code directly in WordPress, heavily customizing the Salient theme with his CSS and Javascript skills, always optimizing the websites with responsive design, making them look correctly in desktops, tablets and smartphones. He’s very familiar with domains, MySQL databases, SEO, social snippets, etc.

Video Making

Cristiano is the “one man band” kind of video maker, since he takes care of every aspect of the project: strategy, idea, script, dialogues, storyboard, casting, lighting, shooting, editing, color correction, export. According to his philosophy, this makes the project consistent throughout the whole production process. To make this work, he meticulously plans every detail of each phase, each time fine-tuning more and more the process.

In 2015 he published his personal view of Expo 2015, getting the attention of various online newspapers.

In 2018 he shot F.lli Cerea meet Elisenda for Esselunga, where Enrico e Roberto Cerea (3 Michelin stars chefs) share their panettone’s recipe with Elisenda, the high pastry of Esselunga. The video is a success and the next year he shot another video with the Cerea, this time for the colomba (easter cake).

In 2020 he shot Ferwood Virtual Tour and Ferwood Live Demo and for the first time he added indoor drone shots to his works. Other notable videos are Antidoto (2021) and Alien Attack (2022).

Video & Photo gear (2019)

Scripting, Video Editing and Motion Branding

Web Eyewear for Marcolin (2022)

Since 2012, Cristiano wrote and edited a lot of videos: video manifesto, promotional videos, motion branding for corporate events, video case-history and many more. He strongly believes that if the person that writes is the same person that produces, the result will benefit from all perspectives. In these projects he uses existing videos (provided by the clients or downloaded from stock websites) to create a story.

Some examples are Skin Regimen Manifesto, The Best Moment of the Game for Jacuzzi, Lung Tales for Roche, A Case Film Like This for Shutterstock.

Dare for Rare for Novo Nordisk (2022)

Since 2021 he specialized in corporate events, where he creates a complete kit for companies including a video manifesto, a motivational video for employees, animated flyers, speakers intro videos, etc.

Some examples are F/Youture for BPER, Dare for Rare for Novo Nordisk, Looking Forward for Web Eyewear (Marcolin), What is Digical for you and Digical Story for Intesa Sanpaolo.

In these projects Cristiano uses technologies like motion and perspective tracking, 3D, advanced masking and sound design.

Social Marketing

Most of Cristiano’s projects include social media strategies, since 2010.

He produced social media contents for many clients.

Some of them are Alitalia, Canada Goose, Findus, Nivea, Nivea Men, Reckitt Benckiser, Bolton, Q8, Kinder, Michael Page, Seven, Durex, Tim, Huawei, Peugeot, Ferrero, Citroen, Mondelez, Vorverk, RCS, Virgin Active, Technogym.

Instagram stories for Canada Goose (2019)

Photography

Brands vs Humans #12, Dubrovnik, 2016

His career started with photography in 1993.

He has been the assistant photographer of Roberto Ghislandi, Massimo Gilieri and Graziano Villa.

In 2015 he published “Marrakesh Sunset” on the National Geographic website.

Even if his job evolved into art direction and advertising, his love for photography kept growing becoming a fundamental layer of his actual occupation, becoming part of his creative offer in 2017.

One of the first commissioned photography project has been Sguardi d’Energia for Roche, in 2017, a rich set of portraits with the aim of helping women affected by ovarian cancer to repossess their beauty.

At the same time he produced a reportage of those women during the make-up preparatory at the shooting.

Marrakesh Sunset, published by National Geographic (2015)

Since 2022 he is working on a collection titled “Brands vs Humans” where he juxtaposes the two as if they actually acts together, in a freeze frame. One of his dreams is to exhibit this collection in a gallery.

During the pandemic he composed a collection called “One” where, in places usually crowded, there was only one subject. The project is still ongoing with some tricks based on tripod, long exposure and ND filters.

When, during an event, clients need both video and photos, he usually attach his second or third camera to a double shoulder strap.