Stichting GameLab Oost

Connects clients, students and companies

In the third year of my study course in Creative Media and Game Technology I did my internship at Conceptlicious. During this internship I had several tasks assigned to me. The main assignment was creating an explainer video, or explanimation, for Stichting GameLab Oost.

Assignment:
Stichting GameLab Oost was founded several weeks ago. The foundation is dedicated to developing and supporting gaming technologies and the gaming industry in the East of the Netherlands.

The main goal of this foundation is extremely broad in actuality, which makes it difficult to explain their entire concept in a short amount of time; it usually required nearly half an hour.
In fact, it took my teammate and I two weeks to completely understand it. This is why the founders of Stichting GameLab Oost wanted an explanimation that explains what they represent.
An explanimation is an animated video that describes a concept to the viewers in a simple, organised manner.

So in short, our assignment was:
“Design an explanimation with a maximum duration of 2 minutes and 30 seconds, where you explain Stichting GameLab Oost’s main concept”.

Process:
In the duration of ten weeks, I’ve created an explanimation with one other intern.

During this process I have had multiple tasks within the project.

We started off by creating a concept for the narrative. One of our colleagues had already written a script, so it was up to us to create visuals that complimented the narrative well. We did this through a storyboard where every scene describes what will be seen and heard.

On the images shown below you can see the storyboard we’ve created. This was not drawn by me, but it portrays the story in a clear manner.

Based on the script and the storyboard we were able to determine our art style and start producing the scenes. It was certain fairly quickly that we would be working in two different styles, since one style would attract students while the other would be appropriate for business professionals.
We have chosen for a simple flat design style, since this is a clear style that is used in many explainer animations; this is a professional style that appeals to a multitude of companies.
Alongside that, we have chosen to use pixel-art as the other style. Through this, the viewer will be introduced to a gaming environment within the explanimation.
Stichting GameLab Oost only dedicates themselves to serious games, which makes the style a good connection to their brand values. The pixel-art style makes the entire video more accessible, thus it’s easier for students to get involved with the foundation as well.
Fortunately, this worked out well since my teammate is specifically experienced in pixel-art in Photoshop while I wanted to educate myself in the geometric flat design style in Illustrator. I hadn’t worked with that style before, so I took it upon myself to master it and focus on that part of the assets.

The geometric style is a flat design style where every object is built out of simple shapes; circles, rounded rectangles and normal rectangles. These are the shapes that are shown below.

I started off by creating a colour palette to make it easier for myself. With this, I was able to keep the style consistent throughout every scene.

In the images below you can see all of the different scenes I have created. These scenes have all been animated by my teammate.

In the meantime, a website for Stichting GameLab Oost was in development. I have also created some content for the site, to increase the variety in images.
https://gamelaboost.nl/

First of all, I designed a fitting character for every stakeholder Stichting GameLab Oost has in the geometric style I chose. These would be the students, the clients, the companies and GameLab themselves.
I have also come up with two situations in which Stichting GameLab Oost could play a part; education on the left side and the healthcare professionals on the right.

Lastly, I have animated one of the situations in a short clip. You can see this animation below.

Thank you so much for your time and effort to read this item, I sincerely hope you enjoyed it! If you want to take a closer look at my entire process, you can read more on my blog: www.merelwstage.wordpress.com.

If you are interested in how I created this or if you’d like to have more information about this project, don’t hesitate to contact me!