London Northwestern Railway TV Commercial

Working with the wonderful people at top advertising agency Impero, we set to work animating the script in time to a fast-paced railway soundtrack.

It was important for the words to be readable, but in a style where they don’t linger on screen. The human brain can convert words into meaning very quickly, and this ad proves just how fast we can read when we want to. As fast as a speeding train, in fact.

We added different motion graphics elements around the words to accentuate different points, using London Northwestern Railway‘s distinctive brand guidelines as a reference. Words zip into shot, before disappearing just as quickly. Multiple words build on screen to reveal a phrase before moving quickly into the next sentence.

The typeface that Northwestern chose for their brand has several different weights meaning a surprising amount of variety could be injected into the typographic layout of each phrase.

When it comes to colour, the palette was stripped back to use just four colours, giving complete clarity to the ad, as it matches their logo and other brand materials perfectly.

The result is a bold kinetic typography commercial that grabbed viewers attention during a highly targeted TV advertising campaign, as part of a relaunch of the brand.

2D typographic animation is a great way to convey a message, both on TV and social media, because it is so easily digested and understood. From a design perspective, it allows a lot of creativity and freedom too. It relies on good scriptwriting though, but luckily the creatives at Impero know exactly what they’re doing in that regard.

You can see several examples of animated typography over on our portfolio page.