Nationale Opera & Ballet, Icon idents (2014) ident 1, ident 2, ident 3, ident
Nationale Opera & Ballet is the global entity born after the merger of De Nederlandse Opera, Het Muziek Theater, and the Dutch National Ballet under the same roof.
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The icon that accompanies the typographic identity outlines the building, the play with the simple thick lines blending it into the whole identity, allowing several visual games within all the dimensions the buidling takes place in.
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Made with studio Lesley MooreMade with studio Lesley Moore. In charge of motion.. In charge of motion.
Triodos Bank, De Bank En De Banken exhibition catalog (2011) exhibition brochure
Triodos is a bank that invests its fund into environment and culture areas. A couch design exhibition took place in the bank headquarters, also impulsed by a wordplay, bank and couch being the same word in dutch.
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The design of the exhibition brochure is very straight forward as its shape, in a first place, follows directly from a format issue, and thereafter relates to the archetype of a couch by the stiffness the binding and the paper give to it. The text then mimes the couch it accompanies.
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Made at studio Thonik in a design team.
Museum Helmond, Ident proposals (2016) ident 01, ident 02, ident 03, ident04
Museum Helmond is located in a castle South of the Netherlands, and recently reopened after a renovation period and the re-thinking of its cultural program.
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Studio HeyheydeHaas created for it an identity based around an iconic logotype that merges the M and H of its initials into one sign, while refering to patterns seen on Dutch medieval window frames.
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Made with studio HeyHeyDeHaas. In charge of motion.
VPRO, Nederlands Film Festival Journaal visual and motion identity (2010) style + animation
Festival Journaal is a tv-program produced by the VPRO that takes place during several festivals in the Netherlands. As its topic and field vary from a festival to another, it was asked to deliver a toolbox rather that a fixed title design.
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To keep it flexible and neutral in an open way, the design has been based on simple radial elements beamed out of the inner round shapes of the letters. The variations of the animated samples allow the production team to change the rhythm, the thickness of the beams, their position, and so on.
This is a demo made for the NFF 2010.
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Made at studio Thonik in a design team.
Tirade.nu, Feb. 2010 issue cover design (2010) cover
Tirade.nu is a monthly dutch poetry publication.
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The cover design deals with the theme of absurd, by messing up the original typeface —outlined— and a plain version of it, and by crossovers, finding new paths and ways of reading.
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Made at studio Thonik in a design team.
VPRO, Premier Gezocht program leader (2011) style + animation
Premier Gezocht —meaning "seeking for the new Prime Minister"— is a tv-show produced by the VPRO, in which the participants try to get through several challenges and questions politically orientated.
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The title design uses several politcal signs that refer to the Prime Minister’s role or surrounding, such as portraits of the 4 fomer ones, or the building in which he holds his function, whereas the animation is mainly based on the bike-gag which had become another trademark joke of the motion identity.
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Made at studio Thonik in a design team.
Villa-Degersheim.ch, Website design proposal demo (2013) website
Villa Degersheim is a holiday cottage located in Switzerland.
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Studio HALLERBRUN assigned me for council on the user interface and navigation design for the website of the socalled villa. The principle I've come up with is to use the layout and overall structure such as a house or alike. Thus by one scroll following one path, horizontal within each chapter, vertical from a chapter to another, you can have a look at every room of content diplayed in that space.
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© Simon + François
VPRO, Import program leader (2010) animation
Import is a tv-program produced by the VPRO that broadcasts documentaries imported from external authors and producers.
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The design and the animation step back in order not to overtake the content that will follow, by first blending together the words "VPRO" and "import", for then keeping them mentioned side by side and evenly big.
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Made at studio Thonik in a design team.
Studio Frédéric Tacer, 2017 wish card (2017) wish card
Studio Frédéric Tacer is graphic design studio based in Paris, France.
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For 2017, Frédéric tacer designed a wish card using the year written as roman cyphers and simplifying up to using only two geometric shapes. Based on that, I animated the whole in a cartonnish way, as a sort of flea circus, taking it against the foot.
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Made with studio Frédéric Tacer. In charge of motion.
Hermès, Saut Hermès 2017 (2016) promotional animation
The Saut Hermès is a equestrian competition organized every year by luxury brand Hermès, in Paris' Grand Palais.
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Studio Les Graphiquants designed, for the event and its campaign, an image of a jumping horse synthetized to a few curved lines. Question was: how the hell could that move?
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Made with studio Les Graphiquants. In charge of motion and animation.
FOAM, Talent Call (2016) animation
FOAM is the contraction of "Fotografie Amsterdam". It holds once a year an event promoting young international photographers.
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The animation first purpose is to display all the informations needed to convince young talents to participate. As it comes to be a lot, the visual plays along with it, structuring itself as a gigantic pile of paperwork.
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Made with studio Vandejong. In charge of motion.
Clio-Infra, Ident (2011) animation
Clio-Infra is an organization based in Amsterdam that analyzes and gathers long-term economic and societal datasets.
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The animation interplays with the idea of flowing data already embodied in a static way in the logotype, firstly introducing the field and function, for then revealing the identity of the organisation behind.
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Made at studio Thonik in a design team.
AHK, Capita Selecta, Identity presentation (2011) logotype, animation, campaign
Capita Selecta is an architecture lecture series program organized by the Academie van Bouwkunst of Amsterdam.
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The visual identity bases its principle on a simple twist drawn straightly from the Amsterdam Hoogeschool voor de Kunsten —which the architecture school is part of— which consists of the overlapping of one color —here cyan which belongs to the aforementioned school— on black, swapped from the first word to the other. A volume seems then to emerge from the edge where they encounter, taken this as a basis to draw a different background volume that accompanies the logo.
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Made at studio Thonik in a design team.
VPRO, Vrije Geluiden program leader (2010) animation
Vrije Geluiden —meaning "free sounds"— is a music tv-program produced by the VPRO and broadcasted every sunday morning.
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The title obviously deals with graphic signs encountering a musical dimension, but the design is also loaded by the venue where the program is shot, the Muziekgebouw, a glass-building dedicated to music, located by the IJ, the river-lake that borders the North of Amsterdam.
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Made at studio Thonik in a design team.
Ed Banger Records, Borussia Sour Stroke clip (2016) music clip
Ed Banger Records is an electronic music label based in France. Borussia is a DJ they produce.
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For the release of its first EP, Borussia came to me saying he wanted to honour one of his heroes: french type designer Roger Excoffon. The idea came – feeling there the vibe of the 50s/60s in France – to overplay the idea of old fashion advertisement, and sell the record for everything but its music, considering it first as a material good than a cultural one.
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© Simon François
VPRO, Nederlands Film Festival Journaal opening animation (2011) style + animation
Festival Journaal is a tv-program produced by the VPRO that takes place during several festivals in the Netherlands. As its topic and field vary from a festival to another, it was asked to deliver a toolbox rather that a fixed title design.
—
To keep it flexible and neutral in an open way, the design has been based on simple radial elements beamed out of the inner round shapes of the letters. The variations of the animated samples allows the production team to change the rhythm, the thickness of the beams, their position, and so on.
This animation was made for the opening of the NFF 2011.
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Made at studio Thonik in a design team.
Zalando, Are You Ready? web clip (2015) editing+motion graphics
Zalando is the biggest european online fashion store, based in Berlin, whose range of choices keeps growing wider.
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Zalando assigned me to animate their Spring/Summer campaign design and come up with a narrative solution by putting together edited and behind-the-scene footage pieces of their promotional video clip.
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© Zalando. In charge of editing and motion.
Items, Feb-2011 issue cover (2011) cover
Items is a dutch design magazine, for which Thonik has worked through a couple of years, first exclusively on the layout, then on the cover design as well.
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The theme of the hereby edition was about the novelties that fashion and textile draw from technology, what the the interweaving of the type-design brings to mind.
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Made at studio Thonik in a design team.
C-O, Corporate introduction (2011) animation
C-O for Cultuur-Ondernemen —translated as "culture-entrepreneurship"— is an organization that provides a link between the cultural world and the business community in the Netherlands.
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The animation introduces in a first place the graphical language set up by the identity stemming from the logotype, and secondly lights up what the organization is about in a series of wordplay extract from the corporate communication.
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Made at studio Thonik in a design team.
Théâtre de Lorient, Identity proposal (2016) presentation reel
The Théâtre de Lorient is a cultural center located in Lorient, far west of France, in Bretagne peninsula.
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Because of its location, Lorient being a haven, Frédéric Tacer based its concept on the "o" that peeks out of a line drawn underneath, refering to the horizon and the sun rising above.
The idea was then to invest its shape of different behaviours or features that could make it communicated the cultural program.
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Made with studio Frédéric Tacer. Music by Bad Bats. In charge of motion.
Art Tube, Visual identity and Website (2012) logotype + motion, website
Art Tube is a website that gathers video collections of several museums in the Netherlands. Firstly initiated by Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam, it has become them a larger scale initiative, and had to provide an identity common to all of the partners.
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The logotype results from an initial trial to make a very simple and strong sign based on the abbreviation of the name. The graphical twist with the slashes that has followed gave its voice to the whole.
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Made at studio Thonik in a design team.
Den Haag musea coalitie, 2010 Greeting card (2009) greeting card
Den Haag musea coalitie is the reunion of several museums in The Hague, the Netherlands, gathered to speak on behalf of the group. An event was organized to celebrate the new year.
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The invitation simply conjures up the transition from the past year to the upcoming one by using a color scheme draws from dusk to dawn, and a typographic interplay that does the rest, alluding to this in-between moment.
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Made at studio Thonik in a design team.
Mansards, Jeroslav Seifert's book promotional animation (2015) animation
Mansards is a latvian publishing company.
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In 2015, Mansards decided to promote new books' launching in a distinctive way: using a audio excerpt of the book and elements of cover design in an original animated piece.
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Made with Zigmunds Lapsa. In charge of animation.
Klara Michel Yoga Coaching Healing, logotype animation (2017) logotype animation
Klara Michel is a yoga teacher based in Germany.
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Studio Haller Brun created for her a simple logo using its name's initial, which would, throughout tha animation, a number of stretching or relaxed positions, refering to yoga routines by pace and tension.
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Made with studio Haller Brun. In charge of motion.
VPRO, ZOZ program leader (2010) animation
ZOZ is a tv-program produced by the VPRO and had therefore to be part of the new house-style. ZOZ is the abbreviation of "zie ommezijde" meaning "look on the other side". The program follows the principle of showing usual commonplaces from an unexpected point of view.
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The animation simply starts from the title written in the VPRO typeface, and stresses the idea of getting a more fragmented and complex approach on things.
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Made at studio Thonik in a design team.
23 Design, Manifesto (2016) animation
23 Design is a graphic and interface design studio based in Mexico City.
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23 Design assigned me to design them there manifesto animation, based on a text they provided me. Through the value they claim to work for, I played along using the simplicity of their own logo: typography in a circle, deploying in may ways so it could reacted to what the text is saying.
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© Simon François
Centraal Museum Utrecht, Motion indentity (2014) ident 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Centraal Museum is a institution in Utrecht (the Netherlands) that centralizes 5 different collections of fine art, modern art, and applied art, under the same roof. Studio Lesley Moore has designed its identity made of a bold dot always placed in the center of any kind of medias, around which gravitates the content and information in the museum communication.
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Since the museum joined the online platform of art video sharing Arttube.nl, studio Lesley Moore assigned me to propose an animated ident tht would relieve the museum identity for animated content.
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Made with studio Lesley Moore. In charge of motion.
VPRO, Idents (2010) pre-ident and ident 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
The idents for a tv-program producer are the very short animations, 3- and 5-second long, placed before and after a program in order to brand it. It is also the proper slot to claim its identity, as a reminiscent melody.
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The animations were that year made by pair, experimenting the rhythm from a 3-second format to a 5-second one. Carte-blanche was given to those formats to display the possibilies of the new shapes and graphic system, and the boldness they were gaining through animation.
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Made at studio Thonik in a design team.
IME, Business strategy presentation (2015) animation
IME is an advertising company based in Guatemala.
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In order to stress its wider approach to marketing, called holistic for it being seen as a circular process ever feeding itself, tha animation plays around circular shapes to echo what the discourse deals with.
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© Simon François
VPRO, Nederpopshow program leader (2010) animation
The Nederpopshow is a tv-show produced by the VPRO where 2 teams made of dutch pop music celebrities face themselves through several stages of questions related to music.
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The logo design has been the same over the years, bt was partly re-designed under the new VPRO house-style. Taking the usual music title as a basis, the animation runs over the movement of the several elements that compose the design, introducing first the name to end up on the live show through the closing black screen.
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Made at studio Thonik in a design team.
Let It Grow, Promotional trailer (2016) opening sequence
Let It Grow is an incubator for startup projects around plants and flowers that aim to make the cities greener.
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At its launch, Let It Grow communicated what it was about, and studio Vandejong assigned me to design the opening and title sequences of its promotional video.
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Made with studio Vandejong. In charge of motion.
6th ASEM Culture, Identity Presentation (2014) ident, loop
The 6th ASEM Asian and European Culture Ministers' meeting took place in Rotterdam (the Netherlands) in October, 2014, under the overall topic of "Creative Industries".
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Studio HeyHeyDeHaas created an identity based on a playful modular system made of simple forms which, depending on how they get assembled, remind of weaving threads, trunks, candies, etc. The motion uses that flexibility to reach evocative compositions.
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Made with studio HeyHeyDeHaas. In charge of motion.
VPRO, Idents (2011) pre-ident 1, 2, 3, ident 1, 2, 3
The idents for a tv-program producer are the very short animations, 3- and 5-second long, placed before and after a program in order to brand it. It is also the proper slot to claim its identity, as a reminiscent melody.
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The second year, pre-idents (3 sec.) and idents (5 sec.) took a different path. The pre-idents placed before the program became more punchy jokes and bold bumpers, whereas the idents turned more into smooth graphical closing.
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Made at studio Thonik in a design team.
VPRO, Boeken program leader (2010) style + animation
Boeken is a litterature tv-program produced by the VPRO.
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The design uses restricted itself to the basic elements part of the new VPRO house-style such as the typeface and the triangles, but brings them into a more more quiet area.
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Made at studio Thonik in a design team.
Yxie Provadja, Cultural season program (2011) season brochure
Yxie is a multidisciplinary culture center located in Alkmaar, the Netherlands, overtaking the former Provadja culture space as its main stage before to exist by itself white its own venue was being built.
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I have designed the 2011/12 season brochure and turned the identity —as it was still open and in progress while the organization itself was not properly set up yet— into a more cloudy and ambiant style by bouncing off the roundish typography originally used.
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Made at studio Thonik in a design team.
Skanu Mezs Festival, Promotional animation (2016) promotional animation
Skanu Mezs —translated as "sound forest"— is a music festival that takes place in Riga, Latvia, in October every year.
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This year's graphics pay tribute to posters by playing around a stack of sheets that pile up, revealing the different informations related to the festival details.
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Made with Zigmunds LAPSA. Music by Ernests Ansons. In charge of motion.
Studio Nine Dots, Virtual greeting card (2014) animation
Studio Nine Dots is an Amsterdam based architecture studio.
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Studio Lesley Moore assigned me to design and animate their 2015 greeting card, accompanying the annoucement of a ping-pong tournement they were going to organize to celebrate the new year.
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CoBrA Museum, From The Guggenheim Collection (2014) animation
CoBrA Museum is located in Amstelveen (the Netherlands) and gathers pieces of the so-called Danish-Belgian-Dutch art movement in its building.
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Studio Lesley Moore was assigned to design the image campaign of an exhibition that would display art pieces from the Guggenheim museum of New York (the U.S.A.), and assigned me to creat the TV spot.
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Made with studio Lesley Moore. In charge of motion.
VPRO, Vrije Geluiden program leader (2015) animation
Vrije Geluiden —meaning "free sounds"— is a music tv-program produced by the VPRO and broadcasted every sunday morning.
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In 2015, studio Thonik was assigned to re-design the tv program logotype, and assigned me then to give motion to the new shapes they came up with.
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Made withstudio Thonik. In charge of motion
Zalando, Stiltest (2014) commercial
Zalando is the biggest european online fashion store, based in Berlin, whose range of choices keeps growing wider.
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Zalando assigned me to design and animate the graphic material that would accopany the video directed by Cathy Boom, its art director.
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© Zalando. Video by Cathy Boom. Music by Motörhead. In charge of type motion.
VPRO, Identity launching sequence (2010) animation
VPRO is a program producer established in the Netherlands since 1926, and is nowadays known as the most culturally radical group on dutch television. Its previous logo was used for nearly 30 years, before hiring Thonik in 2010 for the re-branding of its whole visual identity.
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The motion side of the new identity emphasizes the sassy aspect and mischievous spirit of the graphic elements and system newly designed. This animation sums up a few possibilities dressed up at the day of the launching and opened the press conference where the re-branding got introduced.
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Made at studio Thonik in a design team.
OBA, Journaal layout (2011) layout
OBA is the anagram of Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam, the public library of the socalled city, for which Thonik is working since 2007. The OBA has a monthly issue relating all the news and activities of its several branches shared out all over Amsterdam.
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I’ve used the principles of its identity and turned them into layout rules in order to give a clearer and more guided look to the glance of the reader.
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Made at studio Thonik in a design team.
Shanghai Power Station of Art, Identity proposal animated presentation (2012) animation
SCAC is a chinese art center that has for exhibition venue a former power station of Shanghai.
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The animation introduces the logotype proposal through the grid that it sets up, and by sudden cuts and sharp motions stresses the idea of power and shows a building being built or charged up.
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Made at studio Thonik in a design team.
SP, 2010 campaign bumper (2010) animation
The SP is a party situated at the far-left of the political arena in the Netherlands.
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These 2 animations opened and closed the campaign-movie the party had launched upstream of the upcoming elections that year.
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Made at studio Thonik in a design team.
Thonik In Parijs, Campaign identity (2009) campaign
In the beginning of 2010, studio Thonik exhibited its work in Paris, over a couple of months and in 2 different venues.
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The design consisits in the use of the venues’ logos, the galerie Anatome and the Institut Néerlandais so to say, and the peculiarly fortunate encounter between french and dutch languages.
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Made at studio Thonik in a design team.
Skanu Mezs Festival, Promotional animation (2015) animation
Skanu Mezs —translated as "sound forest"— is a music festival that takes place in Riga, Latvia, in October every year.
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The strings play multiple roles as they get tangled while revealing the name of the festival creating a forest of noise while bringing legibility from the noise that slowly unravels.
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Made with Zigmunds LAPSA. Music by Ernests Ansons. In charge of motion.
Nationale Opera & Ballet, Identity showreel (2014) identity showreel
Nationale Opera & Ballet is the global entity born after the merger of De Nederlandse Opera, Het Muziek Theater, and the Dutch National Ballet under the same roof.
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The identity is based on a flexible system that allows to display the 3 different names within the same language, in a very frontal and theatrical display, yet agile and surprising.
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Made with studio Lesley Moore. Music: Tournerai, by Biosphere. In charge of montage and motion.
Beamlab, Promotional animation (2016) logotype + motion, website
Beamlab is a company based on the Netherlands specialized in lighting instalations and devices in the cultural sector.
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The identity is a typographic boolean system that plays around vivid colours and pitch black, evocating the laser, neon, and other lighting systems. The motion uses sharp cuts and flickering transitions to support that idea.
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Made with studio Vandejong. In charge of motion.
Skanu Mezs Festival, Promotional animation (2013) animation
Skanu Mezs —translated as "sound forest"— is a music festival that takes place in Riga, Latvia, in October every year.
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The motion emphasizes the dreamy ambiance set up by the graphics and translates their feverish and phantasmagorical shapes into a very slow morphing motion and a vibrant changing surrounding.
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Made with Zigmunds LAPSA. Music by Ernests Ansons. In charge of motion.
VPRO, International Documentary Film Festival Amterdam opening animation (2010) style + animation
IDFA is an international documentary film festival which the VPRO is the main partner of. The animation was placed in front of the several movies screened through the whole festival at Tuchinski movie theater in Amsterdam.
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The title uses samples of the highlighted movie of that year —Armadillo, a documentary about the everydayness of a danish troup in Afghanistan—, together with the toolbox identity previously set up for the VPRO Festival Journaal.
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Made at studio Thonik in a design team.
ENSA Dijon, identity presentation (2014) launching animation
ENSA Dijon is a national school of higher education in art based in Dijon (France).
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Studio Frédéric Tacer has designed the identity of the school and assigned me to animate the launching presentation, explaining, the whys and hows of the logo and its principles.
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Made with studio Frédéric Tacer. Music by Bad Bats. In charge of motion.
VPRO, Cinemal.nl program leader (2012) animation
Cinema.nl is an online review produced by the VPRO about cinematic topicality.
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The design has been drawn from the new graphic identity system of the VPRO, and the animation plainly brings it to life, as obviously as the design does, fading the footage it precedes into its final white screen.
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Made at studio Thonik in a design team.
Skanu Mezs Festival, Promotional animation (2012) animation
Skanu Mezs —translated as "sound forest"— is a music festival that takes place in Riga, Latvia, in October every year.
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The motion design takes over the soft, warm and peculiar feelings from the graphics designed for the 2012 10th edition, and translates them into a more ambiant experience.
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Made with Zigmunds LAPSA. Music by Ernests Ansons. In charge of motion.
VPRO, Villa Achertwerk program leader (2010) animation
Villa Achterwerk is a youth tv-program produced by the VPRO.
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The idea was to have a set of open letters such as a game set, scrappy and playful, and from a trick which had become a sort of trademark in the motion identity, to build a sort of grease-monkey game out of it.
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Made at studio Thonik in a design team.
Skanu Mezs Festival, Promotional animation (2014) animation
Skanu Mezs —translated as "sound forest"— is a music festival that takes place in Riga, Latvia, in October every year.
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Relieving that year's graphics, the motion gives life to an abstract, yet evocative, shape that accompanies the logo title, and emphasizes the dreamlike and feverish atmosphere it brings.
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Made with Zigmunds LAPSA. Music by Ernests Ansons. In charge of motion.
Hogeschool der Kunsten den Haag, Manifesto (2017) promotional video
The Royal Academy of the Arts The Hague in the Netherlands changed its identity in 2016, and displayed it along with its educational program in this video.
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Studio Lesley Moore design for the academy, and indentity carried by its logotype: a simple crown, drawn by interconnecting a number of vertices, refering to the numerous interdisciplinarity possiblities.
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Made with studio Lesley Moore. In charge of motion.
Nationale Opera & Ballet, Motion identity (2014) launching animation
Nationale Opera & Ballet is the global entity born after the merger of De Nederlandse Opera, Het Muziek Theater, and the Dutch National Ballet under the same roof.
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The identity is based on a flexible system that allows to display the 3 different names within the same language, in a very frontal and theatrical display, yet agile and surprising.
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Made with studio Lesley Moore. Music by Machinefabriek. In charge of motion.
VPRO, Puur VPRO campaign animation (2012) motion design
VPRO is a tv-program producer, not to be confused with a broadcasting channel, as the 2 are seperated in the Netherlands. Thus for being able to broadcast its programs, a producer has to have subscribers. The more it gets, the more time on tv it can buy.
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"Puur VPRO" is a campaign launched by the VPRO in 2012 as a call-for-subscription. This animation was used to close filmed portraits of several VPRO figures remaining what the spirit of the VPRO was and what its core still is.
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Made at studio Thonik in a design team.
Zalando, Karl Likes Sports (2015) animation
Zalando is the biggest european online fashion store, based in Berlin, whose range of choices keeps growing wider.
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For the launching of the integration of Karl Lagersfeld's sport clothing collection on its platform, Zalando promoted the event with this animated segment.
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© Zalando. In charge of motion.
Mailbox, Po-Box promotional animation (2017) animation
Mailbox is an import-export business based in Monterrey (Mexico).
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The animation promotes the so-called service they provide, explaining in a few steps how that works, and how convenient it gets.
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© Simon François
Power Station of Design, identity proposal animation (2016) animation
Power Station of Design is a museum dedicated to design, based in Shanghai, adjoining the venue of the contemporary art museum installed in an old powerplant station.
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Studio Thonik made an identity proposal based on the initials of the name, with a strong emphasis on the ending D of "design", that morphes and projects itself, like a blueprint coming to life.
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Made with studio Thonik. In charge of motion
Diversion.nl, Pedagogical toolset (2016) animation
Diversion.nl is a website launched in the Netherlands to support teachers having to face crisis situations in their class around heavy societal topics.
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The animation uses an elementary vocabulary to scene up and undramatize situations that appear to be complex in real life, giving clues on how to trigger peaceful debates within the pupils.
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Made with studio Vandejong. In charge of motion.
SP, Dit Is Mijn Protest campaign animation (2011) animation
The SP is a party situated at the far-left of the political arena in the Netherlands.
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This animation was launched online for an call-to-potest against social budget cuts. Its principle relies on a reversible text being read, and which takes a different meaning depending on the way you read it.
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Made at studio Thonik in a design team.
Sizzer Amsterdam, Visual identity (2011) logotype, business card, letterhead, dvd, website
Sizzer Amsterdam is a music production company working internationally throughout a wide-spread network of artists from its headquarters in Amsterdam.
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The design of the logo emphasizes the peculiarity of the name, and keeps around a flashy and straight-forward look canalized into a neat and simple graphic system, corollaries of their approach.
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Made at studio Thonik in a design team.
Manifesta 9, Biennial identity (2012) logotype, stationnary, brochure, website, branding, signage
Manifesta is the european biennial of contemporary art, that moves from a place to another for every edition. For the 9th event, the biennial took place in Genk, Belgium, and had for venue the former coal mining complex of Waterschei.
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The identity is based on the encounter of 2 levels consisting in a heavy upper part made of a custom-tailor typeface, and ongoing lines that ensue below revealing depth, an interplay that alludes directly to the meaning of the event entitled "the Deep of the Modern".
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Made at studio Thonik in a design team. Photographs: Thijs DE LANGE.
VPRO, Meer VPRO campaign animations (2010) animation 1, 2, 3
VPRO is a tv-program producer, not to be confused with a broadcasting channel, as the 2 are seperated in the Netherlands. Thus for being able to broadcast its programs, a producer has to have subscribers. The more it gets, the more time on tv it can buy.
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As a call-for-subscription, the VPRO launched its "Meer VPRO" campaign (meaning "more VPRO") through 3 15-second commercials on the 3 public tv-channels, the first one being more news orientated, the second being more scientific and cultural, and the third one more discovery and youth-related.
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Made at studio Thonik in a design team.
Het Balletorkest, Ident (2014) ident
Het Balletorkest is the orchestra of the national ballet, for which studio Lesley Moore had made the graphic identity, who then made consequently the identity of the so-called orchestra. Although they are graphicly linked, the orchestra's identity stands on its own.
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Studio Lesley Moore assigned me to create a motion piece that would embody the identity principles.
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Made with studio Lesley Moore. In charge of motion.
Nationale Opera & Ballet, De Nationale Opera 50 Jaar animation proposals (2015) animation
Nationale Opera & Ballet is the global entity born after the merger of De Nederlandse Opera, Het Muziek Theater, and the Dutch National Ballet under the same roof.
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In 2015, De Nationale Opera celebrated its 50 years. Following on from the identity they'd designed, studio Lesley Moore designed a special-issue of the logo that they asked me to give motion to.
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Made with studio Lesley Moore. In charge of motion.
SP, 2011 campaign bumper (2011) animation
The SP is a party situated at the far-left of the political arena in the Netherlands.
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These 2 animations opened and closed the campaign-movie the party had launched upstream of the upcoming elections that year.
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Made at studio Thonik in a design team.
Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, ArtRocks! event identity (2012) logo + animation
Art Rocks! was an event launched by Museum Boijmans van Beuningen during Spring 2012, and had for purpose to make fine art and current pop music interact around an open contest asking people to compose a music or a song for the art piece of their choice among the collection of the museum.
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The event identity uses the museum typeface as raw material, and takes it into a wilder area by distorting it under a simple effect and variable beats and motions, while museum’s identity stays recognizable while being embodied by musical vibes.
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Made at studio Thonik in a design team.
VPRO, International Documentary Film Festival Amterdam opening animation (2011) style + animation
IDFA is an international documentary film festival which the VPRO is the main partner of. The animation was placed in front of the several movies screened through the whole festival at Tuchinski movie theater in Amsterdam.
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The title uses samples of the highlighted movie of that year —Ouwe Horen, a documentary starring two old twin prostitutes in Amsterdam— together with the toolbox identity previously set up for the VPRO Festival Journaal. Conversely of the year before, the title design took a softer and subtle approach.
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Made at studio Thonik in a design team.
Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Infernopolis exhibition brochure (2010) exhibition brochure
Museum Boijmans van Beuningen is a modern art museum located in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and which has for secondary venue, an old submarine wharf. The work of dutch artist Joep van Lieshout was exhibited there in 2010.
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The design of the brochure is an endless leporello, which relates to the machineries the artist had built, as a sort of an odd handbook. The inner and hidden side of the loop shows one the gigantic sculptures exhibited on the wharf.
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Made at studio Thonik in a design team. In charge of design.
Mail Box, Identity (2015) logo animation, launching commercial
Mailbox is an import-export business based in Monterrey (Mexico).
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The design is made in such a way that the attention is focused on the end of the word, the last letter, the final destination of your reading, and so does the presentation animation. Thus, the ending "x" embodies the graphic twist, emphasizes the idea of moving, and through its shapes, evokes an arrow, a letter, or a box, which evolves within the communication of the company.
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© Simon + François
AHK, Reinwardt Academy, Course and Examination Regulations handbook (2011) regulation guide
The Reinwardt Academy is part of the Amsterdam Hoogeschool voor de Kunsten, as its conservation and museology department.
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The regulation booklet had to deal with a dry content exclusively text based and divided into a certain number of rules, over 2 languages. By using firstly the type of the school spread on different siwes and weights, it was then possible to figure out an efficient way to glance through the articles.
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Made at studio Thonik in a design team.
Tabrider, App identity and design (2013) logo icon, animation, logo name, interface, logo avatar
Tabrider is a playful application to learn how to play the guitar for iPad created by LBH development.
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There are several basic ideas behind the design. First of all is to have an identity developped through 3 different logos: 1 icon, 1 brand, and 1 avatar, all related graphically. Each of them appears at proper stages of the app and follows the user throughout his progression in the game. Second idea is to base the whole interface in an horizontal way, for practical reasons as it suits better the reading of the music tab, but also to emphasize the idea of riding through the game.
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© Simon + François
VPRO, Idents (2012) pre-ident 1, 2, 3, ident 1, 2, 3
The idents for a tv-program producer are the very short animations, 3- and 5-second long, placed before and after a program in order to brand it. It is also the proper slot to claim its identity, as a reminiscent melody.
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The third year, the visual means were symplified and reduced the graphical language and color-scheme to a common minimum, and therefore to be able to combine and re-combine them, as their overall commonn language was offering multiple potential links between one to another.
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Made at studio Thonik in a design team.
G1OBALS.org, Corporate presentation (2013) animation
G1obals.org is a startup company based in Berlin that connects expatriates and local solutioners to help them to settle and solve everyday life problems.
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G1obals.org was in need of a presentation animation that could explain briefly and lively the principle it is based on. All the animation through, the dot, as a basic element, is used to stress in a very simple way the meaning of a person in the world, and worlds in the world.
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© Simon François
Co-designed with Sven NEITZEL
Audio by Dirk JACOBS
VPRO, Dode Dichters Almanak program leader (2010) style + animation
Dode Dichters Almanak is a program produced by the VPRO, dedicated to dead poets, and broadcasted at night. The program only displays footage of poems read by their authors.
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As quiet as the program itself, the titles design is at first sight a sort of night sky, then turn into either a humming or a wordplay, before to finally end up on the whole name.
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Made at studio Thonik in a design team.