Series Mania
From story to symbol
01 / 07
A bottle for Boardwalk Empire, a trumpet for Treme. A small set of visual clues introduces each series within the few seconds it appears on screen.
A microphone, a clock and a silhouette suggest The Hour. The same principle carries through the selection: find a detail that can stand for the story and give it a simple graphic form.
For A Young Doctor’s Notebook, an illustrated book and a blade become the starting point. Objects, characters and typography give each series its own brief visual world.
The 2014 film takes a retrospective route, moving from the 1960s to the 2000s. Television sets and patterned backgrounds change with the decades, while familiar characters are reduced to a few defining features.
A moustache and a Hawaiian shirt can suggest Magnum; a yellow suit and a motorhome can suggest Breaking Bad. Recognition comes from the relationship between the details.
Instead of using another royalty-free track, I replayed the series’ theme tunes on a synthesizer and arranged them to create the teaser’s soundtrack.
By 2015, the same principle opens onto more illustrated scenes. Cucumber, Banana, Tofu becomes a direct play on three objects; Jordskott is evoked through a forest, water and an isolated figure.
Across the seven films, the level of detail changes, but the intention stays the same: give viewers a glimpse of each story and a reason to discover it.
A hooded figure dissolves into green pixels for Mr. Robot; a fragmented portrait introduces Cleverman. The 2016 teaser brings digital textures, faces and illustrated spaces into the same rapid sequence.
A floating figure faces a television in a red-lit room. Animated scenes, shifting viewpoints and typography introduce the festival’s eighth season.
TV series,
in a few shapes
Seven annual teasers.
Forum des images, Paris.
2011—2017.
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A whole series.A few visual clues
From 2011 to 2017, I created seven annual teasers for Series Mania during its early years at the Forum des images in Paris. The idea was simple: represent each television series through a pictogram or a deliberately simple illustration.
The challenge was finding the right clue. Some series were little known; others had not yet been broadcast. A pitch, a cast list or a trailer could be the starting point for an object, a silhouette or a setting that suggested the story.
Working with the Forum des images team, I developed the concepts, illustrations and animation. Each teaser brings these different worlds together in a short graphic sequence.
Forum des images
Series Mania
Concept · illustration
Animation
7 festival teasers
Paris, France
2011—2017
Find the clue
Not every show had an obvious visual identity. Research meant looking beyond its title, finding a telling detail and reducing it until the idea could read quickly.
Typography, colour and transitions gave these individual signs a shared rhythm. The aim was to evoke a story in the few seconds available, while making the sequence work as a whole.