The ask
I was tasked with creating animations and a style for the Smithsonian Magazine's new series highlighting national treasures of the country. Deliverables included creating an intro bumper, style frames and accompanying animations for the fully edited piece.
The first episode "The Lie Detector" was released and as of the time of writing this, I've worked on a total of 8!
The Process
Moodboards & style references
To start crafting a style for this project, I first discussed with the client (producer) some options I thought would be good given the nature of the video. It's found document and footage based but the client wanted something fun and lively.
Immediately my mind went to a collage style due to its flexibility in assets and the opportunities it brings to be a bit more daring in design.
Crafting a style
Once we agreed on the references and style, I went to work first on the intro title sequence. I find that starting there helps me set the tone for future designs and work as a nice standard.
The designs detail the title coming out of the Smithsonian castle, almost as if we're opening up a treasure chest to see what's inside this month. We then shift to the secondary scene which reveals the treasure for this episode.
Designs
Once I got approval on the intro, I went to work on the rest of the scenes that needed motion design. Below I'll link a few of my favorite sequences that ended up in the final videos. I really tried to lean into Photoshop for this workflow since textures and photo assets are so critical to the style.
Throughout each episode, I tried to keep consistency in the yellow branding and collage style. However, depending on the episode, we decided to add and remove secondary colors as needed. For example, for episode two The Peacock Room, we felt it was important to implement the jaded green color into the designs for the sake of the story.
Animations
I did all of my animation in After Effects, importing my PSD files and sometimes AI using Overlord. Overall, I kept the animations pretty simple. I wanted to keep a relatively handcrafted feel to go along with the collage style, so I used a lot of posterize time. For any characters you see, I use Rubberhose 3 to rig them.
Below you'll find a few of my favorite ones. If you want to see the whole videos, they are embedded below too.
The Results
Full videos