Illustration and Animation done by Thought Café.

Under Thought Cafe, I was in charge of giving the Linguistics and Zoology series of Crash Course a coherent and consistent visual identity to tie each series together.

initial experimentations

Establishing a color palette in the beginning helps greatly when starting the branding process. The colors were kept vibrant and simple to allow to be immediately noticeable when used with different languages and their visual quirks.

In developing the visual identity for this series, I explored the theme of travelling to represent the diversity of language and how it has passed on and evolved over the course of humanity.

type moments

The type moments in Crash Course features a quote from the script and presents it in a textual context to allow the viewers to follow along and make note of any keywords or phrases important to the subject. It can also feature a definition and/or something not said by the host.

full screen graphics highlights

on-screen graphics highlights

mascot

CC Linguistics features a very cute purple rabbit named Gavagai, and he loves to dress up for the occasion.

unhistoric

The “Unhistoric“ segment of Crash Course presents the important figures in the subject we discuss recolored with unconventional colors and shown in a quirky environment to move away from the otherwise boring portraiture. This Unhistoric takes form of a travel passport to match the theme of travel.

thumbnail illustrations

The thumbnail illustrations were kept simple compared to the detailed illustrations in the contents. This allowed for the key character illustrations to shine through.

intro animation

The animation was done by the animator of our team, and the illustrations were created by me with a helping hand from other talented illustrators in our team.
Check it out in higher quality over on YouTube!