case study: maximalist motion Design for logo reveal

About the Project

I was tasked with creating a logo reveal video with a maximalist approach for a motion design project. The purpose of the video is to engage viewers and reveal the logo within a 10-second time frame. I had creative freedom to choose what my logo could be about as long as the video fit the maximalist style.

Research

To begin this project, I first decided to research Maximalism as an Art Movement and how it has been achieved through design. I discovered that Maximalism was a reaction against minimalism and that the idea that “more is more” became the outlook many artists shared during the movement. Aesthetically, maximalism was an excess of elements coming together to work in synchrony.

“Nike Battle Force” Directed by Oddfellows

Now that I was better informed about maximalism, my next step was to research how the style is applied in media. While doing so, I came across various Nike ads that exemplify it masterfully. Most were no more than 20 seconds, yet they all had something happening in every frame. They were vivid, bold, and full of movement. I believed that this aligned perfectly with Maximalism and knew that this logo reveal should incorporate that same energy.

Process: idea formation and logo design

After I was done researching, I proceeded to figure out the logo. I knew I wanted to create something revolving around hip-hop dance and dance culture for this project. Being a part of dance culture myself, I knew it was a lively topic that would lend itself beautifully to maximalism.

I decided to create a conceptual dance crew based in New York named “Street Style Syndicate” whose mission is to share their love of dance with the world. Similar to a city with its abundance of diverse people, loud sounds, and bustling streets, this 10 second video needed to have a rhythm to it that viewers could follow. This rhythm would mimic how dancers interact with music and similarly, how viewers follow dancers’ movements.

*Initial sketch ideas and digitized handwritten type

I began to sketch out possible handwritten type for the logo. I even digitized one of them but didn’t like the hard-edged look of it and instead wanted something more rounded and cohesive to match the symbolism of all the letters being a “syndicate” themselves. A self-organized group of individual letters forming one cohesive image much like a team of individuals coming together to share their love of dance.

Hip-hop originated in The Bronx in New York so naturally, I wanted New York to be represented in the logo in some shape or form. As I began taking inspiration from New York landmarks I thought of incorporating the city skyline as a whole.

While I was playing around with placement, I considered having the graphic reflect itself similar to how its reflection appears on the harbor.

Although the reflection didn’t fully read as clearly as I wanted it to, I noticed that the joining of the reflection could also read as a sound wave. Music is invaluable to a dancer. It’s what drives them to move so having it read as both sound and the city was perfect for the logo.

I had different versions of the logo but ultimately decided to proceed with the middle design as the final logo. This was because I thought it was the version with the best integrated sound wave motif and because the type looked well-balanced and slick. I also loved the way the “s” created a repeating snake-like path that leads your eye down the design.

Process: Incorporating Movement

My next step was to make rough sketches of the storyboard. This helped me visualize what mainframes I wanted to hit in the 10 seconds and served as a guide to show me what areas I still needed to consider such as transitions between frames.

I knew to achieve a maximalist style I needed to mix media elements. Therefore, I wanted to incorporate photography and have it look almost like stop-motion.

I used two photos of mine that were taken in New York and converted them to black and white to have all the photographs color match each other as well as match the black and blood-orange color palette.

To add movement and more media elements, I incorporated a stop-motion PNG sequence of myself dancing across the screen. A PNG sequence was perfect for adding a pop of color in between frames. I achieved this by taking an old video of myself dancing and converting it to black and white to match the rest of the color palette and used Photoshop to crop the subject out of every frame. This allowed me to create smart objects and color-fill any frames. I did so sporadically to achieve a flickering effect when played back.

For transitions, I used photoshop brushes to stack on more layers of brush strokes and saved each layer as individual PNGs. I wanted the orange splatters to mimic spray paint and make it relate to grafitti, one of the four elements of hip-hop.

To continue with the glitchy stop-motion nature of the video, I distorted the logo in Photoshop by blurring parts of it and shifting it within the frame to appear like its glitching. Lastly, I used the liquify effect in After Effects to distort the logo once again and have it match the distortion in the background music.

The song I chose to play in the background was “Neuron” by J-hope. I found this track to be perfect to include since it has an old school Hip-hop sound that relates to the topic of Hip-hop dance perfectly.