Following the renovation of its 24th-floor office, Akuna Capital partnered with JB Creative to create fresh recruiting imagery that highlights both its updated workplace and the people who bring its culture to life.
Client: Akuna Capital
Financial Technology Services
& Derivative Market Creation
Project Scope:
Pre-shoot consultation & creative direction
On-location photography & lighting package
Employee headshots
Short-form motion capture
Image and video post-production
Online delivery & post-shoot support
The Ask: Capture Akuna Capital’s employees within its newly renovated 24th-floor office, creating authentic recruiting imagery that showcased the new space without allowing it to feel empty or sterile. The photographs needed to communicate a fun, collaborative workplace through a diverse mix of teams, experience levels, and employee interactions.
The Process:
Pre-shoot consultation: Through planning conversations with the Akuna Capital team, JB Creative developed an understanding of the company’s recruiting goals, priority spaces, desired employee representation, and the specific workplace scenarios needed for the shoot.
Scope of work development and review: JB Creative created a custom production plan outlining the creative direction, employee schedule, priority scenes, time requirements, and final deliverables for the full-day shoot.
Shoot: JB Creative photographed approximately 20 employees throughout the renovated office, capturing interactive whiteboarding sessions, interns actively learning, collaborative meetings, informal conversations, and employees working at their trading stations. Whenever possible, employees continued doing their actual work to keep the imagery natural. For scenes staged in specific areas of the office, JB Creative used light direction and conversational prompts to create authentic expressions and interactions. The shoot also included formal employee headshots against a white backdrop.
Production approach: Working within an active downtown Chicago trading office required an efficient load-in, a compact production footprint, and a careful balance between capturing the necessary imagery and minimizing disruption to employees. Glass-walled conference rooms created additional challenges, requiring close attention to reflections during photography and detailed refinement in post-production.
Post: JB Creative refined the photographs into a cohesive collection of more than 75 professionally edited, high-resolution images. The final library included both horizontal and vertical compositions for flexible website use, along with more than 20 edited motion clips ranging from five to 20 seconds and delivered in web-ready formats.
The Finished Product: A versatile library of polished photography and motion content that showcases Akuna Capital’s newly renovated office while keeping its people, collaborative culture, and employee experience at the center of its recruiting story.
“JB CREATIVE WAS EASY TO WORK WITH
AND HIGHLY PROFESSIONAL. OUR WEBSITE
HAS NEVER LOOKED BETTER.”
— Elizabeth Gilder, Director of HR
