The project
Built in 2025 for the advertising agency producing a television commercial for Circle K, this is a 1:18 scale model of a Circle K forecourt, made to be filmed as the commercial's set. The brief was unusually open. The agency had no drawings and no fixed design, only a clear requirement that the model read instantly as a Circle K station, with the company's recognisable canopy roof.
The approach
Working without client files moves the design decisions into the workshop, so the layout was developed in CAD and taken through a few rounds with the agency before anything was made. The canopy was the real problem. A forecourt roof of that span looks wrong the moment the columns are thickened to make it stand up, so the supports were engineered to stay as slender as the real proportions while still carrying the roof at 1:18.
How it was made
The model sits on a base of around 150 by 150 cm and is built from 3D printed, laser cut and painted parts, with die-cast cars bought in at matching scale. Surfaces were deliberately finished differently from one another, some sanded to a fog and some painted, so that glass, metal and painted concrete each behaved the way they should under studio lights. LED lighting runs through the station building and the chargers, wired back to a single button at the rear of the base so the whole model can be switched on in shot.
Where the same approach works
A model built for camera is judged only by what the lens sees, and that changes what matters. Sight lines, surface finish and lighting are the whole job, while structural honesty only counts where it shows. The same approach suits television and online commercials, product photography, exhibition set pieces, and stop motion work.
