Branding Afro-Identity Series

At first, I was simply going to use an African print fabric as the pattern for the title, I thought it looked good but I felt that it didn't convey the amount of histories and topics in my project. 

I was already using an African print fabric as my backdrop in the interviews and I did not want to repeat it in the font, in case I decide to change my backdrop.

For the branding of my series, I decided to use the shape of the Africa continent as the image logo.

I knew what look I wanted to go for, a colour gradient going from light to dark on the map. I did think of using each country’s flag but that would be too chaotic appearance wise.

I did two colour gradients of blue and purple, both look really good I think, then I experimented with having a black or white background and the white background looks the best in my opinion.

I needed a position to place the title and I wanted it to be somewhere on the map which I experimented with.

Above, as you can see, I was leaning towards the blue colour but was also looking at how where to place the text. My favourite look is with the white bar on the map, have not decided whether to place it horizontally or vertically.

Below, is the purple gradient colour, this is the colour I am going with because I just find it looks better and compliments the grey font of the title.

Without the white bar across the map, it still looks good with the text but I don't think it pops out at you.

Simultaneously, I have been creating an intro animation using the map in After Effects that has turned out well. I applied the techniques followed in the ‘Unfolding Text’ tutorial on YouTube. I had much help from the IT supervisor, Mike Flower at my university, he helped improve my skills in After Effects so it made the process much easier to understand and complete.

I am still working on the animation to make sure it attracts viewers to the interviews.

Here you can see the white and black background, and I think the different shades of purples is more visible with a white background as the towards the bottom right hand corner the Africa shape is fading into the black background because of the darker shades of purple.