AD&3D
«Akira» is a 3D animation sequence for the fictional opening shot of the 1988 cartoon of the same name. To convey one of the main themes, the world of Japanese urban motorbike gangs, this clip was designed as a sequence shot.
My main research at that time was the inclusion of typographic information within a scene composed in volume. I had a strong interest in typography before learning CGI software, and wanted to link these two passions at the time. Very few typographies are drawn in 3 dimensions from the start, which often leaves us with no other option than to extrude a vector font to add depth. The approach I took here was to create a simplified universe, a dystopia of Japanese shopfront signs, hypertrophied to the point of constituting the entire city by themselves.
The typography that best responds to this extrusion technique and in the direction of the project is Quentin Coulombier’s «ZOO», its pronounced vertical upstrokes retaining their legibility as long as we are aligned with their orientation. I experimented with cell-shading to test strong graphic contrasts not common in 3D renders, but also to avoid being out of step with the style of the film.