À Rebours

//  02

Motion

By interviewing members of a former artistic high school class 10 years later, À rebours reflects on what it means to be thirty in 2020.

It’s writer and director wanted a visual identity that echoed the late 2000s, high school and decadentism. This current that emerged in reaction to naturalism at the end of the 19th century, strongly impressed the class at the time. The documentary’s title refers to an iconic novel of this movement.

  • Graphic designer
  • Motion designer
  • Art Direction
  • Illustrations
  • Animations
  • Intro and Epilogue
  • Chapter screens
  • Poster
  • Credits

Animated Poster

À Rebours animated poster

I wanted the identity to lighten the documentary by gently laughing at the curve balls life can throw. I needed a 10 to 15 seconds running joke template that reflected decadentism’s pessimistic but humoristic criticism and that I could use for the 10 chapter title screens.

Searching for inspiration, I kept coming back to one of my favourite Looney Tunes as a kid, Wile E. Coyote from Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner. Although I was rooting for him and felt compassion for the poor guy just trying to survive, I was also amused to watch him be tortured.

Ch06 //  Parenthood

Ch07 //  To Succeed

Rules

- His environment constantly denies him what he pursues, and his actions systematically backfire.

- Each story will illustrate the chapter's theme it opens.

Ch10 //  Turning 30

For the documentary intro and epilogue, I worked with an other illustrator to accompany the authors narration.

Watch the full documentary here

Diverging paths

Diverging paths animation

Shopping accident

Shopping cart animation

Rainy Bench

Rainy bench animation

Kranky Gears

Kranky Gears animation

Finalising postproduction the director and the rest of the team realised that we wanted to do more of these. We needed an outlet to harbour the documentary and our future projects.

With the desire to continue to have fun doing things we believed in, we wanted a strong identity to reflect the collective’s attitude and cultural terroirs. Something that felt like the combination of punk rock and Roquefort. So I came up with ‘Rats des Champs’.

I'll soon post a dedicated article about this identity. At the moment we’re focused on presenting ‘À Rebours’ in festivals this fall. A blog and a podcast are in the works for spring 2022. In the meantime, you can visit the landing page I made here.