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.
I may be a bit late to the party but I finally got around to watching Spiderman - Into The Spider Verse and I can honestly say that I regret not seeing it sooner. When this film was first announced by Sony I was apprehensive and concerned about how good it would be, especially given Sony’s animation track record featuring the likes of The Emoji Movie and Angry Birds… However, they really pulled it out of the bag on this one and hit the mark on not just the visuals but with the story and characters too. In my opinion, there has been a new standard set, not just for animation but the entire superhero movie genre.
The quality of the design, animation, style and overall presentation of this film has been widely discussed and praised but I want to just add to the ever growing praise for the animators and team behind the style choices. It’s so refreshing to see a large scale film make such bold moves with style and presentation, typically larger films play it quite safe when it comes to stylistic choices and go for something easily digestible by the masses. Often you would only see more experimental or expressive styles in Independent or smaller scale productions, films like Kubo and the Two Strings for example. However, the fact that they decided to go for something more expressive with a large budget and production team meant that something truly outstanding could be created.
Obviously heavy inspiration has been taken from traditional comic books in using halftone shading, shell-shading and distinctive detail lines. What I didn’t expect to see was an interplay between the style and story. They opted to include thought bubbles and captions, post Miles being bitten by the Spider, which added a sort of fourth-wall breaking theme while still staying faithful to the comic book aesthetic. They also had each Spiderman character have a specific style relating to their own universe, Spiderman Noire being black and white, Spiderham being cartoony like the Loony Toons and Penny Parker looking more like an anime character. This idea was really cool and not something I’ve seen executed in such a creative way before, without feeling gimmicky. They managed to have all the characters have a unique style but still work within the larger world and not feel out of place. This interplay between the style and narrative is what makes this movie so successful, it’s self aware and can therefore play off of that. It sort of reminds me of the Lego Movie in a way, in that it has a unique style and uses it to help tell the story.
The narrative is also fairly self-aware and understands the current state of the audience. It understands that we’ve all seen Spiderman films before and know the backstory inside and out so uses that as a foundation to be able to tell an exciting new story. Having this bravery to assume your audience's knowledge can have great benefits in saving time in not having to establishing things that the audience already knows. This has worked extremely well for Marvel Studios with the likes of Avengers Infinity War and Endgame which didn’t need to spend time explaining characters or exposition because the audience is coming into the film with that knowledge already in their mind. Not only did they decide to not retell the same story over again (in a similar fashion to Spiderman Homecoming) they also decided to focus on an entirely new character rather than it being all about Peter Parker. This shift in focus really switched up the film and makes the audience feel as if they are going through the transformation into Spiderman themselves, because they are seeing it from a similar perspective to Miles in that Spiderman has existed for years and is a household name, meaning it’s not us watching Peter Parker, instead it’s happening to someone new.
To be honest, my only real criticisms of this film are pretty trivial. For example, I would have liked a little more development of the extra Spidermen characters, I know they had cool little flashes of their stories (which was presented in such a cool way!) but a little more focus on these might have been useful for viewers not so familiar with the further reaches of the Marvel comics archive. Other than that there’s nothing else I really disliked about the film, they managed to skillfully balance it being suitable for kids, adults, hardcore fans and casuals, that’s no easy feat and I applaud them for their achievement!
Overall, it’s extremely invigorating to see a major animation studio be so brave and create something so beautiful and successful. I hope that due to the achievements of Into The Spider Verse that more animation studios will be encouraged to think more about the style and how it can tie into the narrative. Given the ending of Into The Spider Verse I imagine there’s plans for a sequel, I’m not sure how I feel about this, but if it can maintain the quality of this one then I’ll be extremely happy.
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.
Lusion is a web development studio with a difference. They focus on 'epic, realtime interactive experiences to blow people's minds' and that becomes clear when scrolling through their site. It is truly astonishing and pushes the realms of possibility for web design and animation. Seriously, go check it out and prepare to have your mind blown! Honestly, no screenshot can do it justice!