Development of a motion graphics package for a worthy cause.
The Cause
We all have that one cause that tugs at our soul. Seeing a movie, article or social media post which relates to that cause makes us want to do something about it.
Where I originally come from, poverty, hunger and malnutrition is just another part of day-to-day life. You can then imagine how shocked I was when I found out that there were parts of the world which experienced much worse levels of hunger and malnutrition.
When we see conflict zones on the news, we see the immediate effects on the population in terms of casualties and displacement of the local population. However, we seldom see the long-term effects of such conflict, especially in relation to how much of the country’s crop and livestock are destroyed or commandeered to feed the fighters. The bottom line is that it leaves very little to none for the local population whose lives depended on those very resources.
On the flip-side of the coin, climate change is another factor that drives reduced crop yield and loss of livestock. A recent study showed that between the years 2000 and 2009, a 1 °C warming of the climate owing to human influences caused a crop loss of “10–20% for millet and 5–15% for sorghum” in West Africa. More details on this study are available in the link below.
What does this all boil down to? Well, the United Nations states that on average, 25000 people die of hunger every day. That’s around 2 people who died due to hunger in the time it took you to read this sentence.
That being said, when I saw an opportunity to create a motion graphics package for any topic of my choosing, I had to choose World Hunger, and an organization that is doing so much to address world hunger.
The World Food Programme (WFP) is one of the most effective charities in the world, which has the expertise and equipment to deliver food aid to the remotest places in the world. And yet, the WFP is one of the most efficiently managed not for profits in the world with one of the lowest administration and fundraising spends. What this means is that the maximum amount of donations actually reaches the people who need it the most.
The Process
For this project, I was required to create an introductory animation, a bumper animation and a lower third animation. My ambitious thinking was, the WFP could use these assets in their fund raising videos.
My design process started out with design research that culminated in a moodboard. I drew inspiration from the WFP website and focused on the causes of world hunger along with videos that show the work the WFP does on the ground to deliver aid to people who are affected.
Thereafter, I selected a colour palette that I will use in the animation. I noticed the WFP uses a lot of blue, orange and teal on their website, annual reports and collateral. This made sense to me, as it is important that a potential donor sees the organization as trustworthy, enthusiastic and empathetic, characteristics that these three colours convey. After some minor tweaking on Adobe Colour, I created the split complementary colour scheme shown below.
Next, I developed the style-frame and storyboard for the introduction, bumper and the lower third animations. I also did the same for the logo animation which I used in the introduction, bumper and lower third animations.
The last piece of the puzzle was locating footage captured by the WFP of the various humanitarian efforts they had undertaken. I felt that using their own accounts of the work they do would provide an authentic, firsthand look rather than using stock footage. This is where I encountered my biggest challenge in this project. I reached out to the WFP and requested access to the high quality footage they provide to anyone who needs it as per their website. To my dismay, I received a response stating that access to their original footage was only for media. So I had to settle for lower quality footage from third parties who had covered WFP missions, as well as obtaining some of the WFP’s own footage from their website using screen recordings. This is allowed for educational, private study and non-commercial purposes under Section 29 and 29.2 of the Canadian Copyright Act.
The Result
At long last, we have arrived at the part of this article where you get to see the final product.
Final Reflection
Overall, I am quite happy with the outcome of this project, given that this is the first large scale Motion Graphics Design project I have undertaken. Are there areas that I can improve on, given more time and resources? Absolutely!
I hope my work has shed some light on one of the most important humanitarian causes of our generation, and inspired you to donate to the WFP or any other not for profit focused on alleviating world hunger. I will leave you with a quote from the Gautama Buddha.
“Bahujanahitāya bahujanasukhāya lokānukampāya”
“For the good of the many, for the happiness of the many, out of compassion for the world”.