IDENTITY _ 2018
PISTORIOUS
An art direction brief for a four part documentary series on Oscar Pistorious that ultimately got bought by Amazon and featured on Amazon Prime.
I was approached by Wester Edge pictures and brought into a small team of 4 to work on the conceptual art direction and design for a four part documentary on the life and trial of Oscar Pistorius. It was the first of it's kind for me so tackling it was very exciting. The moment I was shown the rough edit, I knew it was something i wanted to be part with.
I approached the art direction with how I could cross over a reference of sport, domination of some one at the top of their game and the fall. The result ensured the documentary retained it's level of honesty and integrity whilst leaving a uneasy sense of unclarity. Just like the life and trial of Oscar Pistorius was.
Due to it's success, this documentary was picked up and eventually bought by Amazon Prime and is currently available. Watch the full documentary series here.
The design challenge.
The brief required us to create a design language that helped deliver the narrative, whilst ensuring the documentary looked reliable and impartial. We approached this by developing a typeface texture that hinted towards sports. To take the shine off his illustrious record we applied a gravel track texture to it. We then applied some blur elements to some of the letters to give of an uneasy sense of unclarity. Making it uncomfortable to look at, like a lot of the evidence in this case.
Customised graphics.
Some assets, like the time line, required us to visually communicate a complex story top help describe the events from both defendant and prosecutors point of view.
Once created, we brief to to be animated to bring it to life and make it feel dynamic in it's ever shifting and changing state of unclarity, like how the case played out.
Design lexicon.
The core of the work was to ensure that all assets we received had the same tone and treatment so it felt own able and delivered the same message. This included everything from, map design, text message exchanges, titles and supers all the way to how we pull out key pieces in Oscar Pistorius' affidavit.
The documentary was a great success flooded with positive reviews. To watch the full documentary series on Amazon Prime visit here.
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