Rebrand
Client: WW100
Creative, Design & Branding, Motion
MTV2 gained the rights to a popular YouTube series, “Fail Army” and wanted to convert it to a television show. They gave us the awesome opportunity to create the graphics that would re-brand and enhance the show.
Credits
Executive Producer : Shahir Daud
Creative Direction : Phyo Thu
Art Direction : Nico Speziali
3D Motion Design : Nico Speziali, Phyo Thu
2D Motion Design : Hamish Palmer, Nico Speziali, Callum Mudgway
The Mission
After working with MTV2 on both Bebe Rexha’s mini-documentary, “Tracking Back” and their joint venture with Starbucks called, “Summer Wander List” we began our third project with the network. MTV2 gained the rights to a popular YouTube series, “Fail Army” and wanted to convert it to a television show. They gave us another opportunity to create the graphics that would re-brand the show.
Review To Renew
It is rare to walk into a business venture that wants a new look for an already existing product. “Fail Army” is a YouTube video series that MTV2 recently acquired from Jukin Media. Because the show already had its format, we had to brainstorm to find a way to preserve its style whilst showcasing a vibe that reflects the MTV2 brand.
Which Logo To Show
As motion designers, we know that a good portion of any product’s identity is stemmed from its logo. Our team thought that incorporating army imagery might be the best approach. These are a few of our first drafts. Our bomb idea was the one they liked the most. This was largely due to it having an emoji-esque facial expression. It fit well with their goal of using war iconicity without actually being violent. This led to some more trial and error, though at this point we knew what kind of thing they were looking for.
Final Logo Design
Title Sequence
With a logo pinned down, we were able to move on to our next task: the title sequence. The shows old title sequence had a large pile of televisions all showing different videos of people failing. We decided that there should be more to the location of the pile of televisions in the show’s opener. This led to a design of an empty army bunker for the background.
MTV2 prides itself on having a simple, clean, modern design so they felt that the less “busy” our images were, the better. Ultimately, this aspect of their brand led to them picking the empty bunker with a calming blue pixelated camouflage pattern. The bomb was set to a green colour to add another level of flair and fun.
We even threw in a subtle joke. Initially, we proposed the idea that our bombs would explode at the end of the sequence. However, MTV2 didn’t want that because they felt it deviated from their mission of keeping any semblance of “violent” imagery out of their program. Instead, we decided to have a bomb with a lit fuse quickly die out. See? Even the bomb failed.
Transitions – Getting The Bomb Rolling
Another unique challenge to this project was that we had to create a slew of varied transitional sequences. Due to the show being composed of very short clips, we had to make sure that every thirty seconds the audience wasn’t seeing the same graphic over and over again. Our transitions varied not only in content but in length as well. The showrunners were going to incorporate both long and short cuts throughout the program. We even got to throw in some dynamite for a little pizzazz.
Conclusion: An Explosion of Creativity
Rebranding is challenging to do. Our army of talented, creative and determined designers love to take on tasks in all stages of development. We are so happy we had this opportunity to work with MTV2 again. This project was the absolute bomb to work on.
