PATREON 2023 REBRAND

Brand & Modality:

A bit different from my normal gigs, but a very fun challenge nonetheless! Patreon brought me on during the second half of 2023 to help push the 3D in their rebrand. We wanted to showcase the fluidity of the platform and how it reaches across all types of content.

For the core rebrand logos, we wanted to create an animation for Patreon as a brand and within 5 specific creator modalities (Podcasters, Musicians, Video Editors, Game Developers, and Visual Artists). With the timeline we had, we decided we would keep the base animation in the same world, but separate them by the materials used.

For the motion, I decided to achieve this by running the base geo through a fluid solver to get the desired organic effect. With the help of the always useful MOPs, I was able to easily break apart this element and reform it to the "P" during the simulation. I did a series of tests using FLIP vs Vellum, and ultimately settled with FLIP. From there, I also added a series of additional ripples on post-sim that were driven by various sourcing attributes.

While working on the simulation, I hunted down loads of references to get some material ideas churning. I then leveraged all of the materials in GSG+ to start my initial look dev. A lot of these I used out-of-the-box, but I also frankensteined them into what was more appropriate. For the brand specific materials, we opted for more stylized materials that were pretty and flashy. It's crazy looking back at just the amount of "P" logos we went through! Ultimately, Patreon landed on the iridescent glass look as it's main logo.

Bespoke:

Towards the back-half of my booking, we also decided to explore bespoke "P" logos for specific creators. We started this project by targeting content creator Craig Benzine. We landed on wanting to show the engaging tension and release nature of his conversations by way of something reminiscent to message bubbles. Immediately hearing this, I knew I had to jump into some inflation and deflation goodness with Vellum. This was a lot of fun messaging with various constraints and stress values to get the inflated objects to interact how we wanted them too. We also decided to throw in one variant for fun that was highlighting Craig's beard as that is a large part of his branding. After a couple rounds with Craig, we decided to go with a version that shows the objects pressed up against the collider to really show the tension, but also had some creases that reminded us of a "brain"-y quality. 

Holiday:

During the final stretch, the team at Patreon requested a universal winter holidays logo, reminiscent of a snow globe. I thought we could have some fun and break the mold a little with this! Instead of animating the "P" itself and texturing on top, we decided to create a little world inside of the "P" as if that were the world this scene was contained in. With this scene, I utilized a technique I picked up from a Steven Knipping class a while ago by rendering the snow as volumes. All of the snow that you see is this scene is rendered as volumes and not actual geometry. This was a really fun scene to build out and create simulations for the snowfall and chimney smoke.

What a wild ride this booking was! Especially now looking back as I type this all out. I hope you enjoy browsing through all of the different iterations and Patreon logos we went through! I had an absolute blast flexing all aspects of my skillset.

Created with Houdini, Cinema 4D, Redshift, and After Effects.

CREDITS

Studio: Patreon
Agency: Creative People
Agency Rep: Taylor Lasecke
Creative Director: Tim Bellonax
Art Director: Doug Richardson, Nick Daughtry
3D Artist: Alex Liou

BRAND & MODALITY CONTINUED

BESPOKE