This is my Weekly Design Inspiration, this is a space where I share some design work that has either inspired me or caught my attention for its execution or concept. The things I feature on here can include (but not limited to) branding, web design, app design, illustration, typography, video games or anything that shows creativity in a unique way.
In the past couple of weeks I’ve heard mutters about this new Netflix series that explores many animators/artists work in a non-episodic format of shorts, in a sci-fi oriented way. I was intrigued at the idea of this so decided to give it a watch, and I was blown away. Everything about this series is brilliant, the production, themes, tone, variety, narrative, it’s all here! I ended up watching almost all of the episodes in one sitting, as they are typically around 15 minutes each you can get through quite a few without even noticing.
The non-episodic format and focus on dark, often futuristic, themes reminded me a lot of Black Mirror. This parallel works in Love, Death & Robots favour as it gives the viewer a sort of idea as to how this series is going to work. The idea that each short focuses on a single theme or idea and there’s a set amount of time to convey this message. This is what Love, Death & Robots achieves so well, the fact that the creators of these shorts build worlds, characters and creatures that all tell the story or narrative of the situation without the need for exposition. Being able to tell a large portion of the story in the first couple of minutes with no dialog and just panning shots of the surroundings and world is a credit to the people behind the sets. Every aspect of each short plays into the wider narratives, the character design, sets, music, lighting, animation style and filters all are things that work together in a short amount of time to tell a small story in a much larger world. Each of these shorts leave you wanting more from each of the worlds explored, because they have built the worlds so well.
I would like to break down three of my favorite episodes from Love, Death & Robots and talk about what I feel the themes are. I may be way off the intended message, but that’s sort of the beauty of these shorts, multiple messages can be pulled from them. I’ll try to keep the spoilers light but I would highly recommend watching Love, Death & Robots before reading further.
Three Robots
Three Robots takes place in a post apocalyptic world where, presumably, humanity has been completely eradicated. The setting shows a decimated city covered in corpses and signs that whatever caused this destruction was known to the inhabitants. The narrative itself follows three robots that are essentially on holiday to this destination and learning about what it was like to be human and many of the quirks organic life has that seems alien to robots, for example eating or playing sports.
The three robots have unique personalities and designs, that is hinted at being part of an evolution of simple household products, but isn’t explained explicitly. The high level of charisma of the robots echos the long standing sci-fi trope of robots being more expressive than humans, we’ve seen this before in the likes of Star Wars and Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy.
Anyway the story progresses on in a similar fashion and comes to quite an unexpected and humorous end, which truly echos the state of humanity today.
The Witness
This episode blew me away in its animation style and presentation. It’s like Into The Spiderverse meets Ghost In The Shell and I love it! The style is semi-realistic but with a painterly feeling, with strokes and textures dotted around. There is also a sort of lo-fi filtering going on that makes the shots blurry and quite expressive.
It’s kind of hard to explain what happens without spoilers, but the gist of this short is that a girl witnesses a murder across the way in an opposite building and the murdered spots her. A chase then begins between the two with the girl trying to evade the murderer. The chase takes place across a humongous city, reminiscent of Mega City One from Judge Dredd, with mega structures. However, what is interesting is the lack of people in the streets, I'm not 100% sure what this is trying to say but it is worth noting. The chase continues with many super close ups and tight shots that really add energy and suspense to the scenes. [Major Spoiler Ahead] Eventually the chaser catches up to the girl and there is a struggle ending in her shooting the man in an extremely familiar environment. She looks out the window to see a man (the same man she just killed) looking over the street, witnessing the murder. This then sparks the same chase but from the other perspective.
It’s a bit hard to wrap your head around at first but I think the general idea is that it’s like a chicken and egg situation, in that we don’t know what started this ongoing cat and mouse and how long it will continue. Who was the first murderer? Is it a simulation? Is that why no-one else is around? So many questions are raised but it is all told in such a beautiful way and is by far my favourite short when it comes to style and presentation.
When The Yogurt Took Over
I love this short because of how ridiculous the premise is, I mean it’s all in the title. This short has a much more light-hearted approach which can be instantly seen by the style and presentation of the animation. The characters are much more cartoony and there is a humorous narrator telling the ridiculous story of yogurt becoming sentient. The general gist of this story is that mankind somehow created yogurt that was smart, could communicate and apparently has all the answers to humanities problems. However, humanity being not so good at following orders messes up the instructions from the yogurt and puts themselves into a terrible state. Eventually mankind comes around to the way of the yogurt and everything is perfect, until the yogurt one day decides to leave earth, quite comically, in giant yogurt pot shaped spaceships. And humanity is left to figure things out for themselves.
I guess if there is a deeper message behind this then it’s probably to do with humanity not being able to follow sound advice even when it’s handed to us on a plate, or bowl in this situation.
I could have picked any of the episodes of Love, Death & Robots as they all bring something amazing and different to the table, but these stood out to me for their themes, style and presentation. If you haven’t yet watched Love, Death & Robots and are interested by animation then you should really watch it. The designs and animation is such high quality and the themes explored are reminiscent of Black Mirror, so if you’re into that you’ll more than likely enjoy Love, Death & Robots.
Honorable Mentions
As part of my Weekly Design Inspiration I also like to share some bits and pieces that I have seen which have inspired me in the last week. I have captioned each image with some info and relevant links so you can find out more.
With Hellboy day being last Sunday all my favourite illustrators came out in style to produce some amazing tributes to the Right Hand of Doom. It's hard to believe that the Hellboy comics have been going for as long as I've been alive (almost exactly to the day!). I'm still looking forward to the upcoming film and will probably have something to say about it on this blog so keep posted. Above from left to right CreatureBox, Rentaro Sensei and Derek Laufma
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