Text, Texture, LibraryNext

How do you tell a story about the future of libraries while paying homage to the libraries of the past?

Our answer: use paper textures to create a popup world of discovery, filled with the texts of the past, while telling a story about how today’s researchers can unlock their life’s passion in the library of the future.

The job was to create a video about Georgia Tech’s new library system, “Library Next,” which is redefining how academic and research libraries work.

My role: brainstorming and scripting the visual concept, and working with the brilliant 3D animator, Carol Hilliard, to create the final animation.

The brief was “whimsical” and I think we achieved that, and had a ton of fun along the way.

Texts

I used old texts — humanities, mathematics, arts — as the textures for the popup characters that appear throughout the paper world of the video.

Some of the figures had multiple textures, with quite colorful origins.

Sometimes these textures are quite literal, as in the case of these patent drawings for this man riding a skateboard.

We deployed lists of knowledge, old Dewey Decimal catalogs, pages from dictionaries, renaissance-era geometric figures, old sketchbooks in crafting the textures for our figures.

In the end, there were lots of these figures.

Textures

Everything was textured. Even the inside pages of some of the books being delivered to students were laid out using imagery from student and faculty research at Georgia Tech.

I also designed other elements of the piece — animated fans that blow wind in the sails of our library explorers.

LibraryNext

Finally, the whole piece comes together as a voyage of discovery. We used the metaphor of a stage, a research vessel, a deep dive — all to indicate the worlds that unfold when researchers use the library of the future to discover their life’s passion.

Enjoy.

Georgia Tech Library is LibraryNext. We are re-defining the research library of the 21st Century. creating an environment where scholars can access the vast digital cloud of humanity's recorded knowledge. This is our stage -- shaped to encourage exploration, foster collaboration, and celebrate discovery and innovation.
Christopher RichmondMotion Graphics