Google Developer Days – India

Google Developer Days Opening Animation

Overview

Most of our work in Google Developer Studio was spent with engineers, helping them to communicate with external developers to understand their products, but we also handled large events such as Google I/O.

When Google was planning their first large outreach event in India (the APAC equivalent of Google I/O), our small team was brought in create the event elements.

As the motion designer on the team, my job was to develop and create an animation for the event.

Working off of the established branding for the event, and using the 2D vector art to stay true to the Google brand, I created an animation that tied into the larger story that Google was trying to tell: they were providing the building blocks for developers to build their own products in their own worlds.

The Project

It was the largest global event Google had ever hosted in India.

The animation was to be played on a 40X10 ft screen to open the event.

The Process

I was provided with the vector art and challenged with the task of utilizing the on-brand artwork while creating a 3D world for it to inhabit.

I took the provided Illustrator vector artwork…

And translated it to 3D forms.

Developers as Builders

The idea we wanted to communicate was that of developers and builders, and Google’s products as their building blocks.

That principle motivated the visuals and the story: a series of unconnected primary shapes floating individually in a blank canvas and then, magically, pulled together by the force commonality and community, they form cohesive structures. I gathered some initial reference to drive the idea.

One of the main conceptual foundations was that of ‘building from simplicity‘, leading me back to the idea of children’s building sets, a look that we retained throughout the project (but with a more sleek, refined surface to fall in line with core Google branding principles).

“developers creating applications and worlds from the fundamental tools provided by Google”

Storyboard

I storyboarded the sequence…

Style

Then we locked down the look: a minimal, clean set taking advantage of the colors and geometric forms to draw attention to the idea of a slowly building world that becomes filled with color, life, and activity, incorporating local Bengali style and landmarks.

Because it was a live event, the primary focus was hitting deadline while pushing the quality of the visuals as high as possible. I moved things quickly into the edit. I began to export bare playblasts in sequence. They were very raw, but we were making sure we could get the timing and general feel down before we started the process of getting approvals up the chain.

This not only helped the approval process, but because the team had a sound engineer / composer in California, as soon as I had a substantial cut I started working with him to get the music in.

It was a daily back and forth, getting the music and the timing down, all the while rendering out stills and getting approvals.

Once finalized and approved, I delivered the final animation to the specifications set by the event crew in India so it could be presented on the large screen at the moment the keynote opened.

We not only hit the deadline, but we created a video that set the tone and the standard for all 3D animation at Google Developer Studio and the associated departments.