Roles: Visual Design, Illustration, Art Direction, Storyboarding, Character Design
Tools: Adobe Illustrator, Procreate
Collaborators: Animator - Bradford Fermin
Gallery Go is a lightweight, fast, and easy to use version of Google Photos that was created for lower tier devices with less storage and unreliable network connections. The target market was Nigeria and they needed a product video to highlight these core features to get new users onboarded for the launch of the app. I pitched the concept of using fun animations and character designs to lead the viewer throughout the narrative and the team loved it. Instead of the typical product video which only shows a product UI within a phone shell, I got them to green light one that tells a story and engages the viewer from start to finish while still including the necessary product UI elements to guide users.
I started off with the Procreate app on my iPad Pro to create some storyboards. Once they were approved by the team, I did some sketches and created concepts for what the character designs could look like. The team sent photographers off to different parts of Nigeria and I used the crowd shots as inspiration to make sure the designs were all culturally relevant. After the designs were refined and finalized, I brought the boards into Adobe Illustrator to create the keyframes. I prepped everything for motion and art directed the animator to make sure the tone was all in alignment. The app's launch was a huge success and the visual style of the animated video set the tone for the App Store assets, Gallery Go website, and The Keyword Blog. The video was also featured on The Verge.
Character design explorations.
Final character design sketch.
