The whole design took me around an hour and ordered the printing from Vista Printing with glossy options. I like shiny glossy reflection on the black paper that is the concept of my 2creativism website and conveys deep and rich feeling of my site design.

I’d never buy a Hummer though, as awesome as this commercial is. I’m more of the eco-friendly type of driver. Did you hear the next generation of Prius will get 80mpg and have a more powerful engine!?

I hate to beat a dead horse, but this is yet another example of what I call “visual essays.” It’s all about re-contextualizing historical data in a dramatic light by leveraging the power of motion graphics. The result is a compelling argument, something that can be debated point by point, even as it entertains and informs its audience.

Just to clear up any misconceptions: the spot is not 100% CG. Method worked with MJZ’s Rupert Sanders and figurine modeler Stan Winston to create a scene populated by over a 1000 characters. For more info on the technique involved, jump down to the Making Of section below.

What I find interesting about the diorama approach has less to do with execution and more to do with Microsoft and agency T.A.G./ McCann Worldgroup’s thinking behind the project. As the level of realism in games reaches ever higher, game advertising is starting to get interesting.

I’ve long thought of Logan as masters of quirky, memorable, beautiful spots, but this one also has a great narrative arc. It looks like most of the “effects” were practical, but knowing Logan it’s hard to say for sure. Either way, the technical aspect always stays out of the spotlight, making room instead for the characters and their stories.

I’m always interested in PSAs, especially ones that try to infuse a little information into their concept. My favorite projects are what I call “visual essays,” a term I’ll be developing further at Offf in NYC. Visual essays are the motion graphics equivalent of written essays. They build an argument through the use of pointed facts and rhetorical devices, but because they can leverage the power of audio/visual stimuli, they can reach a much wider audience in a shorter period of time than most literary media.

DAf’s spot is full of cleverness and fun details, like the Euro-shaped puffs of smoke from the tractor and the use of a corkscrew to “pull up” the bars of a bar graph. The best bit, though, is the fact that they not only included the 850,000,000 figure, but that they then underscored its enormity by showing its relationship to the European Union. That’s the sort of visual that gets lodged in a person’s brain. It’s the kind of information that can be internalized, digested (pardon the pun) and then re-disseminated by the audience, effectively creating a virus of data. I love it.

Excerpted from Motionographer.com