Motion Design - 2020

AskThemWhy

"AskThemWhy" was my application for the Motion Creative Program at Hyper Island. The video is based on a Browser Extension that shows which Websites run on Green Energy and which don't.

About the Project

AskThemWhy was part of my application process at Hyper Island. The assignment was to work out an idea on how to achieve the sustainability goals by the UN. I focused my project on the fight against climate change. More precisely the impact the tech industry has on carbon emissions. My Idea was to create a browser extension that visualizes the carbon footprint of every website. With the extension there is also the possibility to directly get in contact with the websites owner.

Challenges

I decided early on to explain the topic in a very abstract fashion. It is something I have been wanting to try out for a while and it seemed very fitting for a video about the internet. When working with abstract shapes, there is always the risk of the video being not understandable anymore. A hexagon that visualizes fossil fuels might make sense for me but maybe not for the viewer.

Screenshot-2021-03-29-at-14.44.04
Screenshot-2021-03-29-at-14.44.51

Solutions

Through some trial and error in the concept phase, I quickly learned that there needs to be consistency for all environments and shapes. I started showing drafts of the video to friends to see if everything was understandable.

Screenshot-2021-03-29-at-14.44.51

Outcome

The end result is pretty close to how I imagined the video at the start. There are definitely some imperfections here and there but overall I am quite happy with the outcome. I also got accepted to the program so the mission was accomplished.

Clemens Makoschitz © 2022