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nickelodeon | Kindernet

Channel Design

Nickelodeon briefed us to develope a channel CI for their relaunch of Kindernet, a classic Dutch kids channel that was on air since 1988. The idea was to keep references to the look and feel of the old channel design and update it with state of the art elements. The organic aesthetic of stopmotion animation was our best fit to combine the old and the new worlds in a contemporary context. Colourful lines are leading the viewer through a world of stopmotion and real elements while the camera is mostly showing everything from a top angle sight. The lines are activated by a kids action like hitting or pressing on something. After their brought in action they animate the paper elements and they are starting to move and change. Real elements are also coming alive in short stopmotion animations. Finally the animations augment in the Kindernet Logo Animation, referring to the logo animation of the 90s channel design. Because we had to fill a whole channel flow with a limited number of elements, we decided to create producer kits that provide the possibility to exchange patterns and make variations of every part.

Making Of

A complete channel desing that mostly consits of stop motion animation is definately a challenge. But hey, we do love a good challenge!

To create the handmade look we wanted to achieve for this channel design, our artists had to craft countless of paper objects and find a way to manipulate them easily for the animation.

Over a period of time every corner in our studio was filled with paper of all colors, glue, siccors, strings... you name it!

As doing stop motion requires a lot of planning, loads of scribbles, storyboards, diagrams and animatics had to be created beforehand. In order to have full control, you need to know what happens in every frame of your animation before starting to shoot.

Finding the right style and feel for a channel design is important, and always an interesting and challenging process. Some of our early designs included complete 3D CGI concepts and a 2D solution as well as the mixed media stop motion approach that we concentrated on for the final design.