Earlier this year, Uber rebranded themselves.
'Have you ever looked at someone’s hairstyle and thought “oh my, you peaked in the 1990s?” Well, that’s a bit how we felt about Uber’s look. It’s not just that we were young and in a hurry when we replaced our red magnet logo with the black “U” badge four years ago. It’s that we have become a fundamentally different company.' - Travis Kalanick / CEO
With a new bold and playful identity, Uber wanted to bring two stories to life to delight and educate their audience. They also to create a consistent animation language that matched their design identity for consistency across all media.
'What is Ubers animation identity?'
One of the concepts behind Ubers branding is the atom and the bit. They represent the idea of human travel made easy with effortless technology. To us, that meant an animation language rooted in the idea of getting from point A to B in a very fluid and playful way. This reflects the dots and squares seen in their brand film inspirationally. It also deliberately uses this A to B idea to transition from shot to shot graphically. It also means the characters move in a left to right type motion as seen in the illustrations from their brand identity.
The Bit and the Atom.
With a vision and tone in mind, our first order of business applying the atom and bit concept to the logo motion wise. It needed to be simple and clear, but also playful to match our motion mantra.
After that, it was finally time to illustrate then two stories the Uber team developed called 'Late' and 'Snooze'. The goal was to establish tension by visualizing a race against time. The story wanted to build up to an intense crossroad where you think the hero character will run late, but Uber saves the day. The client was smart, Uber isn't a novelty, but something everyone can use to solve problems, sleep in more, and make life a lot easier.
