Hero Brands Cyberpunk Alley
State-of-the-art digital illustration and animation for the new Hero Brands Ltd website, created to frame their portfolio of culturally relevant, high-growth brands with clarity, confidence, and edge.
From 'Sides', run by The Sidemen, a popular British YouTube supergroup, to 'German Doner Kebab (GDK)' and 'NXT' and talent such as Khaby Lame, the work translates a broad commercial ecosystem into a singular, high-impact visual language.
Delicate approach balancing motion, illustration, and brand storytelling across one of the UK’s most dynamic consumer portfolios.
Athif Sarwar
Chairman & CEO, Hero Brands Ltd
Maelstrom did an amazing job on the Cyberpunk Alley art and animation for our new Hero Brands website. He was super easy to work with, understood the vision quickly, and the final result came out even better than we expected. We were really happy with how everything turned out.
Static
Animated
Brief
Hero Brands Ltd commissioned a bespoke homepage illustration that could represent multiple businesses within one cohesive digital environment. Rather than relying on literal storefronts or separate campaign assets, the brief called for a single cyberpunk-inspired British street scene where each brand would appear through a distinct object, sign, or embedded moment within the world.
Challenge
The main challenge was compositional as much as aesthetic: creating one hero artwork that would hold together across both desktop and mobile without losing clarity, hierarchy, or balance. Each brand needed enough presence to feel intentional and clickable.
Approach
The solution was to treat the environment as both illustration and interface. By stacking the interactive brand representations around the corner of a narrow alley, the composition preserves a strong cinematic perspective while keeping the key brand moments consistently visible across all responsive crops. This made it possible to distribute attention more evenly and turn spatial constraints into part of the visual system.
Process
Motion and Outcome
Subtle rainfall, neon flicker, and reflective light introduced a controlled sense of movement, while hover interactions turned each branded element into a navigational touchpoint. The final result is a cinematic homepage hero that merges worldbuilding, interaction, and portfolio storytelling into one unique visual system.
Website Interactive Preview
