PlayCity is an app that connects people with others who are interested in the same activities. The app helps people find the best match based on skill level, availability, and facility membership.
ClientPlayCityRoleCreative Director, AnimatorServicesStoryboarding, Illustration, Motion GraphicsYear2016Websitewww.playcityapp.com
Background
In summer of 2016, entrepreneur Hafiz Mitha and his team approached me to create a short animated explainer video for his app, PlayCity. They wanted the video to explain how easy their app makes it to find people in your area who want to play the same sport, have the same skill range and are available to play. I was responsible for the creative direction character design, and animation.
Planning, Scripting, and Storyboarding
Once Hafiz and I had met and discussed the goals and focus for the project, I brought Steph Wong Ken on board to write the script that would be used for the narration. After finalizing the script, I developed a storyboard to work out the pacing and plan how the concepts might be visualized. Below are a few rough sketches of the character design and scene layout.
Asset Creation
For this project, I used Adobe Illustrator to design all of the scene characters and backgrounds. These illustrations were then imported into Adobe AfterEffects to be brought to life.
Character Design
I wanted to create a diverse and balanced group of characters for this animation. The style of illustration was kept very simple and minimal with monochromatic environments to make the characters pop. It was a lot of fun to think of what types of sports the characters could be playing and how each scene could be composed.
Motion Graphics Animation
This was my first major project using Adobe AfterEffects. Prior to this, I had worked primarily with Adobe Flash to make animated content so creating this animation was a great learning opportunity for me to get more acquainted with the app. It was a fun and challenging process and I learned a great deal from this project.
Conclusion
“Let’s finalize this! We love it.”
After some minor adjustments to the draft animation, the team gave the final green light for approval. Check out the completed video below: