Learn more about the The $1,000,000 Pyramid Video Game.

And one of my favorite moments – Bink Dawsondale tells you how to collect your winnings.

Inspiring and encouraging video from the copywriter and art director behind brilliant spots for Old Spice (“The Man Your Man Could Smell Like”), CareerBuilder and Skittles.

The video sequence is the result of a risk-taking client, months of licensing work, several hundred casting submissions, a 12-hour shoot, over an hour of produced video, and 297 annotation links. Our fictional yet legendary host “Bink Dawsondale” brought the series to life. Learn more about the Who Wants To Be A Millionaire Video Game here.

Watch a few of my favorite moments from the sequence in the full post.

Bink Dawsondale loses it:

Rather than helping, Bink tries to sell you the video game:

Bink shares a personal moment regarding food

Mad Max reference

Ask an Expert.. and a workout at 45 seconds in

A few months ago, I installed an 8′ x 8′ chalk board in our living room. Dana Tanamachi’s work puts anything I’ve ever drawn on mine to shame. Inspiring stuff.

CREATING A BRAND ARCHITECTURE

Beyond the immediate objectives, we wanted to create an extendable system for a range of Just Dance products while maintaining the loud shelf-presence established for Just Dance 1. The original key art was inspired by vintage typographic gig posters, and we had set a difficult precedent for the brand by creating the largest logo ever seen on the front of a Wii box (unverified claim). Pure typography, particularly in the gaming space, was uncommon for fairly obvious reasons. “Call of Duty” set in 200pt Gotham Bold is not nearly as cool as a guy holding a gun, surrounded by explosions, and a helicopter over his left shoulder. While the Just Dance branding had great shelf presence, a typographic system introduced issues over the lifetime of the brand. At some point, we would eventually run out of colors, finishes and logo angles to create meaningful differentiation from title to title. We wanted to create a structure that could evolve the personality of the brand over time.

After several rounds of exploration, our team developed an architecture. We created a system that not only incorporated the Just Dance 1 branding, but could also guide art creation for the primary product line and extensions (e.g. Just Dance Kids). The structure of logo and song placement became a guide for a brand that could either live in pure typography or in art direction appropriate to the product extension. As a result, the Just Dance brand maintains strong shelf presence, is expandable, and holds together within a consistent framework.

Art direction within the Just Dance brand architecture

For Just Dance 2, we utilized a black background with a white logo for strong contrast on shelf and to communicate premium. Rather than treating songs as back of box features, the songs were integrated into the key art to create interest, create competitive distinction, and encourage purchase. As proof-of-concept, we did an exploration for Just Dance Kids with Brazilian artist Marconi. The psychedelic collage incorporates playful music-themed imagery with songs featured in the game.

Only a few years ago, art direction was in its early stages in the video game industry. Video game developers adopted a style of realism, and art styles were influenced more by graphics hardware than art directors. Valve, by no means, introduced art direction to video games, but how they communicate with art direction is ground-breaking in this space.

Our agency often describes art direction as “establishing the look and feel of a project.” I have personally been guilty of defining it as “Let’s hire that sick artist who did that mind-blowing thing for that brand.” Both in advertising and gaming, art direction can convey premium and personality to a product. For Team Fortress 2, Valve used art direction to communicate gameplay first, and along with that, added value and an ownable style.

Moby Francke, the art lead on Team Fortress 2 (TF2), joined the project after four failed art directions. The game mechanics introduced several issues that creative had to solve. In addition to the faced-paced game play of TF2, the player needed to quickly discern teams, classes and weapons. The TF2 creative team went through multiple years and creative rounds before arriving at an art direction inspired by early 20th century commercial illustration style.

From the classic commercial illustration style, the artists emulated the stylized shading and rim highlighting and combined it with distinctive silhouettes for in-game class readability. “We really understood our game,” describes Valve software developer Robin Walker, “so we knew the areas that the art direction had to be able to solve […] We have nine different classes and it’s incredibly crucial that when one of them comes around the corner, you immediately know which one it is.”

Randy Lundeen, level designer, continues, “Designing Team Fortress 2 taught us a lot about how important silhouettes are. Clear character silhouettes helped players get distinct reads in an instant, giving them the information they needed to make important snap decisions in a fast-paced environment.”

Beyond character design, the art direction communicated friend or foe through environmental materials, hue and saturations. The red team’s environment is composed of warm colors, natural materials and angular geometry. The blue team makes use of cool colors, industrial materials and orthogonal forms. In all cases, communication guided the art style rather than the personal preferences of the art director.

Independent video game art director Viktor Antonov said, “In a well designed game, every little piece has a meaning… skillful storytelling is invisible storytelling. Games are consumed through the eyes, and are a visual medium. They should use the language of the eyes, and not have a story pushed on them.”

So why the geeked-out gaming rant? If Team Fortress 2 has taught me anything about how I consume information, it’s less about the visual trend of the moment and more about clear communication through art direction. Yes, I still want to hire this guy, and that guy, and of course this agency for my next project with that brand. However, the Valve example demonstrates that the primary role of art direction is creating visual shortcuts for the end consumer.

LEARN MORE ABOUT TEAM FORTRESS 2: “Illustrative Rendering Featurette”