"It's not my fault your sense of humour changed"
For millennia, humans have used mythology to rationalise the world around them. Millions of avatars have been created to personify abstract notions and principles.
But as humans changed, as our moral priorities shifted and as our worldly comprehension expanded, so too did our mythology. As such, many old idols whose assigned values no longer resonate with modern audiences have been discarded, or in a modern context, cancelled. We like to think ourselves above what once was and that by ridding ourselves of old avatars we have evolved into something better – but how will current beliefs, myths and values hold up in the future? Will we be looked down upon for who we idolise and how we worship them?
How soon until we too are labelled as primitive?
This project attempts to contextualise these notions through a tongue-and-cheek animated short following the disgruntled old Norse god Odin, as he rants about his imposed ostracism, and in doing so, passes comment on our belief systems then and now.
Sure it’s important to get both sides of the story.
Initial Animation Test (Unused)
Initial Character Profile for Odin
The type is based off of old Norse runes, with the original typeface being “Norse”, created by Joël Carrouché. I ended up tracing over the font designs to create a more hand-drawn quality with a similar line texture as the animation, plus I wanted to change some of the letter forms.
I also wanted to play into the concept that the Norse never wrote anything down as their records were primarily oral re-tellings. More often than not their runes were more akin to ideographs than letters. The idea was to make it look slightly chiselled and crude, like it was written by someone who does’t write often.
Type Design
The colour Scheme is used to contrast the two eras on display.
Odin’s time is represented by desaturated secondary colours - green and purple, whereas modern times are represented by saturated primary colours - red, blue and yellow.
During the night time scenes towards the end, the world is changed to match Odin’s colours, representing how “better” is all about perspective and that we may face the same fate as the abandoned mythologies that came before us.
Colours Used
