Playgrounds 2020 titles

Bandeins Strange (Maximilian Müsgens 2019) and NB Akademie Mono (Stefan Gandl 2016) are used for the opening titles/ trailer of the 2020 edition of Playgrounds. In their video description on Vimeo, film production company The Panics describe their process:

Directing these festival titles under such peculiar circumstances meant director Erwin van den IJssel had to think outside the box. We may all be practising social isolation right now, yet there’s also a spirit of collaboration and solidarity, and Van den IJssel wanted to show this in these titles.

After finishing the animation, each frame was sliced into individual parts and printed out, before being packaged and sent to members of The Panics. Directing at a distance worked a charm, and with just three weeks, 962 pages, 3848 edges cut, 22 participants, 8 ink cartridges, and 3 paper cuts, the titles were delivered.

Playgrounds, the festival for the creative industries, moved their festival online after it became clear social distancing restrictions would make a physical event impossible. However, the spirit very much was kept alive and on April 16th they hosted artists talks, panel discussions, portfolio reviews, and more.

The titles, with animated explosions and dazzling psychedelic patterns, makes clever use of the “Strange Width” axis of Bandeins Strange. Increasing the width will stretch the horizontal parts of selected upper- and lowercase characters. The different instances are shown in the font presentation on the foundry website. On the recently updated v-fonts website (a collection and showcase of variable fonts), visitors can play around with Bandeins Strange’s Strange Width and its other axis, Weight.

Directed by Erwin van den IJssel
Produced by and featuring The Panics
Producer: Liene Berina
Music & Sound Design by Amp. Amsterdam
Additional Animation: Federica D’Urzo