Vice 'Rule Britannia' Type and Logo

We wanted quite a hand drawn aesthetic for all the type to co-inside with Jessie's illustrations. While she worked on sketching out some characters from some of the episodes in the series I experimented with the type we would be using. The Vice logo had to be included in the ident so I started there. We couldn't make any changes to it however we could do what we wanted with the 'Rule Britannia' logo and 'A Vice Original Series' text.   

Vice Logo

After scanning in the drawings we decided which one we liked the best and matched Jessie's sketches to link both our work together. 

We wanted to move away from the obvious use of red, white and blue and create something that would make the videos stand out. During the crit a few people suggested that we use colours from the union flag but with a different Hue or twist to them.

Below are colour samples from the union flag adjustments.

Here are some .gif versions to see how they would animate in the video.

A VICE Original Series 

Wanting to continue the theme of British but not obviously British I started looking at what typefaces I could use for the rest of the text we needed. 

I came a across post on the website Font Deck Celebrating British Type which featured common typefaces created by British designers and used in the UK (Gill Sans in tube stations for example). 

Gill Sans

Eric Gill took inspiration from Edward Johnston’s typeface for London Underground. Gill Sans is described as having absolutely legible-to-the-last-degree letters by Gill himself. The typeface works well for both text and display work and has been used by British Rail until 1965, Penguin Books in the 1930’s and is currently used by the BBC.

Transport

Another British typeface associated with transportation is the appropriately named Transport. Created for the Department of Transport by Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert, this highly legible, sans-serif typeface is used on road signs throughout the UK. This typeface works great for bold and clear headings.

Calson 

In 1720, the English gunsmith William Caslon turned his hand to typeface design, and in 1722 designed a typeface in his name. The typeface took cues from Dutch Baroque types, which were then used extensively in England. Because of their remarkable practicality, Caslon’s designs met with instant success. Caslon was the Helvetica of it’s time; a legible and all-round typeface which saw widespread use. And three centuries later, this typeface is still as popular as ever.

These typefaces become popular because of their versatility and legibility which is important to consider when choosing a typeface for the ident as the information will need to be communicated as clearly as possible.  

Above are some British designed typefaces which can be used for the titles. 

Vice 'Rule Britannia' D&AD (Collaborative)

We decided to choose the brief Vice has set as it allowed us to incorporate animation into the project which both of us had little experience with before but would like to expand on.

To start we did a little research into what Vice was and particularly the subjects it featured in its Rule Britannia series. 

Most of the subjects they tackled were serious and often about criminal activity - which made the 'Rule Britannia' title seem satirical and a lot of the articles had a tongue and cheek tone of voice. The tagline 'The best of Old Blighty' is ironic as the articles are exclusively negative. 

We started by linking words that related to 'Rule Britannia' and then Vice's version of the term to generate some ideas and themes. 

Vice's current 'Rule Britannia' ident

The current ident used by Vice uses stop motion to make a flag ripple, referencing the song 'Rule Britannia' which was sung by the navy at sea. I feel it is a bit too literal and doesn't really communicate what the channel is about   

Animation/Film    

We looked at some existing idents to get an idea of what was already being produced and how they linked to the channels/companies content.

Film 4 

Taking shots that could be found in the films that Film 4 put on these simple idents are a good introduction to the channel. The repeated rolling of the images relates to the roll of film used to project in cinemas. I like how the type gradually comes together as the film speeds up and that it looks as though it has been placed into the scene.   

   

TWDY | New Topia

Artwork & animation by Sam Leyja, Victoria Cook and Andrew Weiler, lilfuchs.com

Music video for This Will Destroy You's song. Like how the animation flows with the song and hypnotises you into the video. The clean and simple abstract shapes and vibrant colours also help to fixate you on the animation with creative effective transitions to move from one image to another.

Tame Impala - Feels Like We Only Go Backwards  

Artwork & animation by Joe Pelling and Becky Sloan, beckyandjoes.com

The animation for Tame Impala's video has been created using plasticine which works really well as a material for stop motion as it is incredibly versatile and can be re-sculpted and adjusted to make smooth transitions between shapes.  

Swindle - Moodswings  

Artwork & animation by Mr. Tit (Karimo & BDID), ilovekarimo.com

Unusual animation to fit an unusual song. I like the digital illustrative aesthetic to the video and the bright bold colours used. The repetition of the images fits with the repetition in the song and 'flows' really well.   

ONE.org 10 years

Animated by Studio AKA, studioaka.co.uk

I picked out these images from this animation because they used the technique of drawing out the same text over and over to make it move. While this is commonly used in hand rendered type animation I think it is appropriate for this project to give it a natural human feel. 

     

FEATHR Initial Concepts (Responsive)

Marius Roosendaal

Geometry is the theme I want to explore for this brief so I started to look into existing artists for inspiration. Roosendaal creates illusions out of isometric shapes making them look as though they are in a 3D space. 

Part of the FEATHR brief was to create a piece of artwork specifically which also works as repeat as they were looking for something different from the usual wallpaper designs. Images that make the viewer look twice such as these would be a good place to focus my project on.    

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