We are Ducks, WEEEIRD Ducks! Our November ident is a kinetic typography experiment directed by Ivan Miguel. Typography is an essential part of motion graphics and we wanted to push the boundaries to the limit with this piece.
Ivan Miguel is a seasoned Art Director/Motion Designer with 10+ years of experience working in advertising and motion graphics.
Originally from Spain, he has worked as an Art Director for 6 years at two of the most relevant Spanish advertising agencies, creating work for a variety of international brands. In 2015 he moved to the U.S. where he has worked as a freelancer and in-house staff for several motion design studios in NYC & SF, for clients related to broadcast, technology, non-profit, and social good.
Ascari is a queer non-binary artist from Italy: composer, pianist, singer and sound designer. They have a Master Degree in Film Music Composition from Italy and have worked worldwide as a freelance soundtrack composer for film, advertising and videogames. Their composition language mixes classical and electronical music with cinematic minimalism.
Audio portfolio available here: https://soundcloud.com/marta-ascari
After discussing our branding identity with Ivan, he gladly accepted to develop a concept based on edgy animated text and pounding electronic music.
What came first, the chicken or the egg?
Ivan needed a tight audio reference to develop the animation but ASCARI needed a more detailed animation to work out a multi layered soundtrack.
We ended up using a bunch of reference tracks, the main beat from ASCARI plus some extra drum and bass music. Once the animation was completed ASCARI worked on the final pass of the score adding glitches, noises and granular bits. A little easter egg… the synthetic voices were partly sampled from the FedUP team!
Ivan produced the whole storyboard and designs in Illustrator, exploring many different layouts and integrating vectors, shapes, textures and cut-outs. The storyboard actually stands out as a great artwork on its own!
2D Motion Graphics / Kinetic Typography
Pushing the boundaries of kinetic typography meant developing and blending different AfterFx animation techniques with the use of patterns, glitches, loops, 2D physics and cut-out animation, perfectly synced with the soundtrack.
Adobe After Effects / Illustrator / Photoshop
We are very proud of this ident as it is the perfect match of animation and music. The work is brilliant and a bit nuts..! Check out our YouTube channels to find out more about the creative process.
STORY MATTERS – we love technical jargon and learning new techniques, but we strongly believe that the story should always come first!
MOTION ACTIVISTS – we work with people that share our values.
Storyboards, 2D Animation, Design/Illustrations: Ivan Miguel
Soundtrack: ASCARI
