Hornet review

Portfolio is viewable first-hand with embedded video and per-project credit blocks naming client, agency, director and crew: Spotify lossless audio launch, Adobe Express 2025 campaign (agency 72 & Sunny), WhatsApp Empire State Building, FENTY x PUMA x Smurfs, Tiffany & Co, Coca-Cola, Coachella, Skittles. Currency is checkable: the news index runs to 11 Jun 2026 and the site footer reads 2001-2026. The flagship piece is corroborated off-site: D&AD's 2025 winners archive lists Balloonerism (Mac Miller / Warner Records) with a Graphite Pencil in Music Videos and credits Hornet as entrant, design agency and production company, so the headline work is not a self-report.

What this dimension measures: The primary reason to hire a production agency. Look for a body of work that is current, attributable and recognisable, with named clients whose brands carry real standards. Distinctive, consistently high-quality output for demanding clients scores 4-5. Competent, generic output scores 3. A portfolio dominated by work more than two years old scores 2 — the team that made it has usually moved on. Where reviewers independently credit narrative or storytelling ability rather than just delivery, weight that: turning a complex proposition into something clear is the hard part of this job. Counts for 25% of the weighted score.

Evidence: verified — checked against a named source you can open; the links under Sources below are where to check it yourself.

No price, no range, no package, no minimum project size anywhere on the site; there is no rate card, no cost guide and no 'projects start at' anchor. Buying runs through new-business email or one of five regional sales reps (Free Agents US, Beautiful Universe Canada, All Of Us Here London, Unlisted Asia/Australia, Tony Petersen Films Germany), which is bid-per-project. Not scored lower because scope itself is stated plainly: careers page defines the studio as animation, motion design and live action, and brand strategy is pushed to a separately branded sister company, Perfect Stranger, rather than implied to be in scope.

What this dimension measures: Published prices, published ranges by video type, or fixed productized packages score 4-5, and an all-inclusive fee that covers script, music, narration and revisions scores at the top of that band because the quoted number is then the real number. Ranges given only on request score 2-3. Bespoke-only quoting with no public anchor scores 1-2. Score scope clarity alongside price: a vendor that states plainly what it does NOT do — no shoots, no strategy, animation only — is more useful than one implying it does everything, and should not be penalised for the boundary itself. Counts for 20% of the weighted score.

Evidence: inferred — our reading of indirect evidence, not a documented fact.

Stronger here: Epipheo scores Excellent on the same dimension.

No published process page, no named approval gates, no collaboration tooling, and no independent reviewer commentary on delivery could be read. What is checkable is production structure rather than method: credit blocks name a producing chain (Executive Producer, Supervising Producer, Senior Producer, Associate Producer, Director of Production, Head of Production) across separate projects, the careers page lists Project Management and Live Action Production as standing departments, and named executive producers are published for New York, Los Angeles and motion design. Held at Adequate because structure is not a described process and nothing about schedule adherence was independently verifiable.

What this dimension measures: Video projects fail on coordination far more often than on craft. Look for a described process, named collaboration tooling, defined approval gates, and independent reports of on-time delivery. Reviewers consistently citing clear communication and structured workflow score 4-5. No described process and no reviewer commentary scores 2-3. A vendor whose reviews mention schedule slippage or unresponsive periods scores 1-2 on verified evidence. Counts for 15% of the weighted score.

Evidence: partly checkable — corroborated in part against the sources below; the remainder rests on the agency’s own account.

Observed directly on-site, not just claimed. The work index filters by Design, Animation, Live Action, 2D, 3D and StopMo, and individual project pages carry matching discipline tags: WhatsApp is tagged 3D/Animation, Adobe Express is Motion Design/2D, and FENTY x PUMA x Smurfs is tagged Live Action with a Director of Photography and line producer credited, which is a real live-action crew rather than a claimed capability. Stop motion appears both as a filter and in a live job posting spanning cel, CG and stop motion. The director roster runs to roughly 30 directors and studios covering hand-drawn, felted stop motion, CG, real-time game engine and live action.

What this dimension measures: What the agency can actually produce: live action, animation (2D/3D), motion graphics, studio versus location, and the format and aspect-ratio coverage needed for where the video will run. Both live action and animation, across multiple formats, scores 4-5. A single modality scores 2-3 — not a defect, but a real ceiling that the buyer must match against the brief. Animation-only vendors in particular cannot serve briefs that need people on camera, and that should be stated in the verdict rather than discovered later. Counts for 15% of the weighted score.

Evidence: verified — checked against a named source you can open; the links under Sources below are where to check it yourself.

Nothing published on who owns the final file, the raw or CG source files, or project files, and no stated term or territory for music, stock or talent licences. The only policy documents linked from the site are a cookie policy and a privacy policy, both hosted as Google Docs, neither of which addresses deliverable rights. Measured absence, not a retrieval failure: about, careers, contact and multiple project pages were all read successfully and none carry licensing terms. A buyer commissioning through an agency or a rep will be negotiating this in the bid.

What this dimension measures: Who owns the final file, the raw footage and the project files, and for how long the music, stock and talent licences run. This is where video differs most sharply from design: a licence that expires, or talent usage limited by term and territory, can make a video unusable in year two. Explicit ownership transfer with stated licence terms scores 4-5. Finals-only delivery scores 2. Silence scores 2 and should be raised before contracting, since retrospective clearance is expensive. Counts for 10% of the weighted score.

Evidence: inferred — our reading of indirect evidence, not a documented fact.

Stronger here: Epipheo scores Strong on the same dimension.

No timelines published anywhere: no brief-to-delivery estimate, no typical project length, no indication of how far out directors book. The one indirect signal is scale rather than schedule, and it cuts the other way for a buyer in a hurry: the Balloonerism credit list runs to well over a hundred named crew across Hornet plus two French partner studios for a 22-minute film, which is a long-cycle production shape. Undisclosed scheduling, so scored on the rubric's own guidance for silence.

What this dimension measures: Stated timelines from brief to delivery, and how far out the agency books. Fixed, published timelines score 4-5. Multi-month cycles are normal for high-end work and score 2-3 — score the honesty of the estimate rather than the length, since a realistic twelve weeks beats an optimistic four. Undisclosed scheduling scores 2. Counts for 10% of the weighted score.

Evidence: inferred — our reading of indirect evidence, not a documented fact.

Stronger here: Epipheo scores Excellent on the same dimension.

No independent client review base was located and read first-hand. Clutch returned HTTP 403 to every profile URL attempted, so no rating or count can be cited and the existence of a profile cannot be confirmed either way; LBBOnline also returned 403. What was verifiable independently is juried awards, not client reviews: the D&AD 2025 archive entry naming Hornet. The site's own Silver Clio claim could not be confirmed, since the Clio winners page located for this album credits a different entrant on a different piece and does not name Hornet.

What this dimension measures: Volume and recency of independent, verified reviews. A substantial base on a verification-requiring platform scores 4-5; a handful of reviews scores 2-3; none located scores 2. Low weight deliberately — in this category a portfolio is more informative than a review count, and several excellent production shops have almost no review footprint because their work arrives by referral. Counts for 5% of the weighted score.

Evidence: inferred — our reading of indirect evidence, not a documented fact.

Stronger here: Vidico scores Excellent on the same dimension.