The purpose of this animation was to inspire and excite the client at the start of a pitch. They were so happy to see the parrot come to life. (it was already a strong mascot for the brand) This contributed to winning the pitch!
As the design of the new packs were largely centred around a new parrot, the design team really wanted to see it come to life to sell in the updated design to the client.
The challenge: make the parrot fly in and land on the logo. The catch? being given a flat photoshop file and having two days to do it!
The most important thing for the first day was to show that the parrot could fly convincingly. If I’m honest, I’d never tried to animate a bird so it was a real sink or swim moment!
You can see a short breakdown of how I split the photoshop file into usable elements and then created a rig in After Effects. For the flapping of the wings, I referenced slow motion footage of a parrot landing, noticing that they spread their tail feathers and flap their wings in an anti-clockwise direction before landing. In the animation you can see that the head tilts as well as they lock onto the spot where they will land.
The design team were very happy with my progress so day two was all about refinement and adding a dramatic and energetic explosion of colour that brought the wider design identity to life.
This short project was tough. However, I leaned so many valuable skills and really surprised myself with the final result that went down very well in front of the client.
Nathalie Bland
Faye Thomas
Sam Cutler