Would you like to know about the first drag queen? Well now you can and what a story it is! I had so much fun exploring designs for this Pride month project. My goal was to design a concept that was bold and striking. Since the story takes place in the late 1800's, I decided to use black and white images with colorful shapes.
For the above design, I took an editorial graphic approach. I leaned into the images and used abstract, bold shapes to help frame them. I also mixed in current images and elements to help tell Swan's story. The biggest challenge I had was how to show Swan graphically? There are no known images of Swan, but I had to come up with a solution that would still fit in the 1800's historical time.
My solution? A silhouette in a frame just like the good ol' days. This image, along with the crown, would be used several times in the piece to represent William Swann. The above design was chosen to move forward for animation. Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to After Effects I go.
My idea for the animation was to show a timeline of sorts. Using the bold, colorful shapes, we move thorough the story of Swann. I used secondary images to add interest to the piece and as supporting character's. I love challenging myself and this project turned out to be ambitious but oh so worth it. Swann was a unique person and I wanted to do a piece that represented him as just that. The final animation was used for Independent Lens social media and YouTube.