Overview
The Trustworthy campaign is an internal video series, created with Helios Digital Learning for an international financial institution which covers topics ranging from code of ethics to corporate asset management.
Art Direction & Character Design
When I was initially approached by Helios, they came to the table with a pretty clear direction and framework for the videos. Through initial conversations and what developed into an excellent collaborative relationship it was pretty much decided that the art direction had to be "simple" and that these videos needed a main character to act as a guide for the viewer throughout the series. A "simple" design is not always easy but, luckily in the initial conversations the styles of the old UPA cartoons were heavily referenced, and that gave me more than enough of an idea of where to start. Ultimately the art direction came down to just two general treatments, and the main focus was establishing the right main character and the eventual expanded roster.
Proposed Art Directions
Eventually the decision that was made was to go with the second more modern treatment. However, the client still wanted to try and blend as much of the UPA style into the more modern look, and I felt that could be accomplished through character design.
Character Design
Whenever I start with a character design I usually start with silhouettes. Knowing that I was aiming for a simplistic and geometric character in the vain of the UPA cartoons I quickly found the stronger designs out of bunch, and so did the client. I began refining and presenting more options based on the initial selection. As it happened the initial choice ended up being the final one. The original sketches were done in Photoshop and the final designs were done in Illustrator knowing that I would be animating in After Effects and rigging with Duik. As the scripts were written the cast expanded and because of focus in pre-production early on with the main character the rest of the characters fell into place smoothly.
Thanks for taking a look!