The brief was to create a social media animation to increase student applications and to promote brand awareness, since the University Centre Leeds branding is relatively new.
As with any new client, my first task was to read their corporate identity documentation, and peruse their website and social media. I sourced some nice PDFs of their previous print work, which were clean and modern. I was confident that there was plenty of scope within the brand to produce something interesting.
The UCL branding includes a colour coding system for the different categories of courses they offer, so I briefly entertained the idea of making a very colourful project. However, their primary corporate colours are cyan and black, which I chose to utilise to create something powerful and distinctive, since raising brand awareness was one of the key requirements of the brief.
Furthermore, duotone images are used in the intro pages of their prospectus. I’ve always liked duotone imagery as it’s stylised yet clean, and it’s possible to use reversed white type and it will be legible on any image without losing the impact and message.
The “MASTER YOUR CRAFT” graphic, with the distinctive outline on the “U” and “C” as per their logo, is used throughout UCL promotional material, so I chose to use this and also apply it throughout to accentuates the branding and simplify the message.
Therefore, the wording for each heading had to be quite precise, as it was necessary to have a “U” followed by a “C” in each one! I also chose to keep their logo and distinctive black footer throughout the animation.
I chose images from their database which illustrate the varied subjects and qualifications available at UCL, as well as the facilities and industry leading tutors which are all mentioned in their prospectus. Finally, I used an image of Leeds itself before ending with a call-to-action card.
The tricky part was getting the timing just right, so that the headings were readable without getting boring, and there was enough movement to engage the user without being confusing. I initially intended to have the dark “UC” graphic as a background tint, but it looked confusing on some images. I kept it on the first slide, as I liked the way it ‘frames’ the dancer, then I faded it out and back in again for the final CTA slide.
The tricky part was getting the timing just right…
The client thought the finished animation looked great, and met both the requirements of the brief. She also kindly commented that she would sit and watch it on repeat several times over!
Designed on Illustrator, Photoshop, After Effects, and Media Encoder on the Adobe Creative Cloud suite.
J Everard Design 