Project Brief: In this class project, we will produce a motion graphic animation of the NATO Phonetic Alphabet, with each letter representing its phonetic word (A = Alpha, B = Bravo, etc.). Each student will create a mood board, and the winning mood board design will set the visual style for the NATO Alphabet project.
Nato Alphabet Animation
For this class project, each student created a mood board, and we collectively voted on the best vision for our project. My mood board won, establishing the design direction, and I was appointed as the art director. As art director, I developed project guidelines that featured a vintage aesthetic using a warm color palette and the BLIPPO MN BLACK typeface. The designs needed to be vector-based, featuring a textured background and a “sketchy” style for a hand-drawn, vintage feel. I also determined the layout for the lettering: the assigned letter was set at 1000pt in BLIPPO, with the word description at 100pt BLIPPO, and a 150px space between the letter and the description, all centered both vertically and horizontally. Additionally, the illustrations also had to be placed within the letterforms. The letterform would start as a solid color and the illustrations would be animated in.
The three letters that I was assigned were U for Uniform, V for Victor, and W for Whiskey. I decided to create simple illustrations that would fit seamlessly within each letterform. Since these illustrations would later be animated in After Effects, I aimed to ensure each one had at least two distinct larger components that I could easily animate in order to keep things visually interesting. The goal was to create designs that were simple enough to animate smoothly, but also complex enough to produce engaging and lively animations.
Letter Illustrations
In the end, the project came together to reflect the vintage aesthetic and hand-drawn style that I envisioned. As the art director, I ensured that the students adhered to the project brief and provided guidance whenever questions arose. I also created a detailed tutorial video, walking students through the process of adding the required texture, step by step, to help everyone stay on track and maintain consistency across the project. Overall, this project was a collaborative effort that successfully merged design, animation, and typography, resulting in a visually engaging interpretation of the NATO Phonetic Alphabet.