Viva Magenta - Pantone Colour of 2023
COLOUR AND LAYOUT
Imagine a 1960s lava lamp filled with molten reds, purples and magenta moving slowly behind a calligraphic title, Viva Magenta. That was my vision when creating this ode to 2023’s Pantone Colour of the Year.
Scribing the title with Ecoline watercolour brush pens onto Rhodia dot paper, I traced the outline with pencil, and vectored the outline in Illustrator placing each letter segment on individual layers so they could be animated in After Effects.
WATCH MY PROCESS
Loose, loopy and overlapping, Viva Magenta flowed from my pen straight onto the paper. I start by preparing my left hand for the direction in which I need the flourishes to go before committing to the first stroke. Often I write multiple versions however, in this case, I only scribed one. Some edits were needed of the lowercase g in order to improve the descender flourish — check it out in the process video.
2D ANIMATION
After importing the Illustrator layers to After Effects, I applied masks to each letter stroke to create the reveal, then Fill Color Wipe to gradient the text, and 4-Colour gradient to animate the flowing background shapes.
Viva Magenta!
