http://www.threeleggedlegs.com/repertoire/starbucks/
Quite a good piece of work, especially if you learn they did it in only 4 days. According to the credits, it was about a dozen artistic people involved.
It's worth to have a look at their development artwork. These guys don't do everything from scratch. I don't know which software they use, but Photoshop and Illustrator seem to be involved. And they use it for good reasons:
1. Styles. You'll notice that all their elements share some attributes, like all the same gradients in the coffee cup steam. It's a real timesaver if you prepare your workflow in a way that all you need is the press of a button.
2. Textures. Again I don't think they produced them for only this project. Instead I suspect they have a studio library of crumbled paper, sand, cloth, and whatever. I highly recommend to build up a library like this in your spare time.
3. Styles #2. Notice the colour variations of characters and backgrounds: same shapes, different colour moods. In Photoshop, one could use Layer Effects to easily produce colour variations.
There's more to learn from them. Notice how they present their artwork. Aside from #6 where, I assume, they pasted the characters on a scan of old paper just for the overall feeling of the spot, all characters and props are presented on a neutral but warm gray background, where colour values can be judged more reliably than on black or white.
It's worth to write down which attributes they vary and which not. They don't change their character's heads shape. They don't change the ship's body, but they think of really different ways of rigging. When they vary, they vary broadly and visibly - they don't care about neck lines of sweaters.
I like it how every background element has some texture applied, but in a decent way, like paper structure, not distracting from the overall shapes. The animation is a bit slow to my taste, but it's amazing how few real animation they use - most is done by just shifting stuff and moving the camera.
Starbucks commercial
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