My role here at Thompson is to bring the brands we work with to life, in motion. Working alongside the other creatives and designers I help create an all-encompassing approach to branding, giving businesses an opportunity reach out to their customers and clients in a creative and engaging way on every possible level.
I love to create and experiment with many different styles and approaches, whether it’s a creative approach, or a technical one using software and technologies, to allow me to realise the potential of ideas. I take inspiration from everywhere and this post is a little showcase of some of the more recent bits and pieces I have come across, or had shared with me, that have caught my eye.
Nailing the ideas
Only the cleverest or most beautiful content /stories will be given more than the 30 seconds most people are willing to engage with anything. In this throwaway society it’s usually the smartest ideas that will win you likes, views or engagement rather than the biggest production values or shiniest graphics. But that’s no excuse for poor execution.
Nike are possibly one of the biggest or most recognisable brands on the planet, some brands squander this privileged position when it comes to creating beautiful content, but Nike almost always nail it when it comes to the creative ideas.
Being quite geeky the way data of any sort can be visualised always intrigues me. Smart devices and wearable tech is ever growing and is big business. Whereas all the giants such as Facebook, Amazon and Google track us through data we provide online, we also use technology to give us feedback day to day on personal goals and objectives, through devices such as Apple Watch, Fitbit and software like Strava. Designing how this data is displayed and delivered to us in an appealing and meaningful way is a challenge in itself.
This is just one of the more abstract, experimental and creative ways that I’ve been inspired by.
Cubstudios, one of our favourites here at Thompson, use live player and match tracking data to create automated animations for football matches. They have then used the same process and technology to do the same for the World Cup.
I’m quite often asked, can you just make it move? Well, yes of course I can. The question on my mind is how?
Part of my job is to help explain and educate to give me a greater understanding of a client’s requirements but also to help them understand the process of motion design.
A lovely example here of the many ways a brand can be explored in motion.
Here is a piece from one of my current favourite motion designers/artists – Ash Thorp. A short homage to one of my favourite films the Manga classic – Akira. This was a seminal film in the Japanese animated genre of Manga and along with a website explaining the video its a beautiful cinematic short.
There’s a great in-depth breakdown of the process to create this on the Awaken Akira website
And lastly…a little something we cooked up
This is a 3D CGI piece I worked on for our client James Heal, recently. Following a successful rebrand the business asked us to help them reflect that new brand in videos presenting their equipment. Here’s how we achieved that.
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