Childline Family Relationships is a child facing awareness animation, bringing attention to Childline's support network. Aimed at young people, the film connects with its target audience through social media channels. The animation was also used to help build engagement and increase Childline's social following.

Our Process:

The intricacy of different family relationships was the inspiration for our creative approach. We wanted to visualise that feeling of complex family connections. Simultaneously representing different ages, demographics and scenarios. This would help to connect with emotions or events a viewer may have experienced in their own lives.

The illustration style was created to attract a young audience and fit the animation's tone. Anything too cartoony or quirky could jar with the narrative and distance viewers from the important messaging. We designed friendly characters with realistic proportions. Placing them in simplified settings with a geometric look, to add a cool edge.

Despite the animation starting off full of colour, the film's tone is a serious one. Connecting with sensitive themes can be difficult to design. We tackled those scenes with stripped back colours and simple metaphors. We understand the importance of representing these themes appropriately. Representing ideas to evoke emotion with a sensitive approach.

Another key part of the Childline Family Relationships design was to come up with an efficient way for the film to play across all of Childline's social media channels. These included YouTube (16:9), Instagram (1:1), Facebook (4:5) and Snapchat (9:16) - which all have their own aspect ratios.

The master square format shown was our solution to deliver these varying screen sizes. Our template helped to make sure designs could be cropped for all formats, without losing any of the vital messaging.

Childline: childline.org.uk