It’s an obvious fact that combining passion with professionalism results in high quality and innovation. Since we are always in search of new concepts and approaches to constantly improve our craft, an opportunity to produce an animation for Ars Thanea seemed exciting from day one.
About Client
“The only constant is a change.”
“The only constant is a change.” Wise words from Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher, that are being integrated on a daily basis at the Syzygy Agency. With such a mindset, they are able to create outstanding digital products. SYZYGY is a team of programmers and designers who have been creating and developing digital solutions for 14 years. They are supporting the digital transformation of customers all around the world…
Storyboard
The script and theme were simple and technical, thus the client wanted the style to be friendly looking, showing human touch. „Let’s create something that would be similar to childish scribbles” – that’s what we have been told and with the help of our talented artists, we’ve managed to achieve all the paramount goals.
Illustration style
Since our goal was to stay with a rather minimalistic design, Alegria was a top-notch option for such a case. Alegria in Spanish means ‘joy’ which was apropos of the world we envisioned for creating this fun, playful world. This illustration system was developed by LA-based creative agency Buck specifically for Facebook back in 2017. The style is defined by simple shapes, flattened perspective, minimal line work, disproportionate bodies, and colorful skin tones. Here are examples of such characters:
As you can tell, their palpable joy seems approachable, inviting, which all eventually translates into cheerfulness and togetherness. It seemed to us to be the right choice for a video that describes how people slowly get used to the „new normal”.
Animation
In order to adopt a visual language signaling positivity, we needed the incessantly exuberant shapes and characters to never be static. They had to be always in motion, dancing, painting, flying, cooking, etc… All of these actions would help us with portraying the sense of joy we feel while sharing things together in the community, like celebrating a goal in a football match or drunk singing with friends at a karaoke bar…
Overcoming challenges
Many factors contribute to a project’s success, and the timely delivery of tasks is one of the most crucial of them all. Deadlines can have the potential of throwing all the goals and plans into disarray. With this project, we also faced time constraints, so executing a strategy of breaking the final deadline into milestones helped us move forward efficiently. We took our time to prepare, schedule, divide the tasks into small chunks, and focus on delivering the highest quality work on time. Our team’s collective efforts along with the client’s active cooperation determined the project’s ultimate success.
Notable Lessons:
- Always experiment with styles – illustration styles have changed a lot during the last years. We are constantly witnessing the emergence of new trends. So, why not take something from the past and apply them to the modern standards.
- Develop effective client communication – Just like a pleasant conversation with friends can help alleviate stress, an interesting dialogue with the client will inevitably boost business relationship! With strong rapport, even big problems can be handled efficiently.
- The more you leave out, the more issues arise – what do we mean by that? Revisions! If in the storyboarding/scripting stage you get everything right and make sure client’s expectations are precisely met with the story you’re about to convey, then whole production goes as smooth as velvet! So, always take your time to go through details and don’t leave room for any concerns.
Client Feedback
„I think the K&C Media team was super fast and super efficient in the time given. What I appreciated the most was the fact that the team was very open to feedback and was looking for creative solutions each time amendments were submitted. Also, the communication was very smooth and direct, leaving no room for misunderstandings. I hope to have more projects like that to work on with the K&C team!” -Magdalena Burzykowska. Junior Production Coordinator at Ars Thanea.
