Cardiff University
The Wolfson Centre
A short, approachable animation to celebrate the Wolfson Centre and the work they do.
Growing up is hard. Trying to grow up during a global pandemic is even harder. Luckily, The Wolfson Centre is here to help with their new research facility dedicated to understanding the mental health of young people in Wales and more importantly, how to support it.
To celebrate its launch, Cardiff Uni dropped us a line to see if we could create an animation that could show off the centre’s expertise and explain how they will achieve their mission of improving young people’s wellbeing.
Of course, we said yes.
The approach
Here at Storm & Shelter, we’re big on talking about your mental health, but we know for some people the conversation can be very difficult so we wanted to make sure we approached things sensitively but in a way that was still bright and engaging.
We mixed a bright, colour palette with a playful motion style, upbeat sound design and authentic voice-over to bring the animation to life. To reflect the positive impact the centre has on young people, the film opens with a cooler colour palette that warms up once the centre is introduced and the research is explained.
We kept the animation smooth and at a comfortable pace throughout, adopting a lower frame rate to give it a more personal and tactile touch which is further emphasised by a series of abstract character designs to reinforce the idea that mental health is personal and a human issue.
Although the research was looking at the effect of the COVID pandemic, we didn’t want to be too on the nose with how we represented that. Instead of featuring masks, we created a set of ‘windows’ inspired by the architecture of The Wolfson Centre to isolate characters and act as dynamic transitional elements to draw focus and keep the scenes alive.
It’s always great when you’re happy with the result of a project. It’s even better when you know that it’ll be used for good.
Thanks to The Wolfson Centre for getting us involved, it was an absolute pleasure. 💚
