SNFCC stands for Stavros Niarchos Cultural Center, located in Athens, Greece. It is a cultural center which attracts visitors from all over the country. Christmas is a very special period for a SNFCC, as thousands of people visit it to celebrate Christmas. For the fourth time in a row Odd Bleat created a Christmas World for SNFCC.  This time, theconcept of the 2020 Christmas campaign is Christmas in the Covid-19 era. Cough, Cough, Cough!… Sorry! Ho Ho Ho!
 
-text provided by the authors
 
This year, due to Covid-19, everything is different and it was a tough year for everyone. By the end of September, when we started discussing the project with the SNFCC team, everything was very uncertain and we didn’t know if on December the 1st, the day that traditionally SNFCC Celebrations starts every year, Greece would be in lockdown. It was really hard for SNFCC to schedule the celebrations and the events, and therefore, it was difficult for us to develop a concept in this weird situation.
 
 
So we came up with the concept “Here and There”. We imagined some diverse characters to be at their homes, during lockdown, doing their everyday activities and suddenly a window will open on the screen in order to reveal the same character but in a totally different situation. 
 
 
Each character from his home is suddenly being transferred into a christmas situation participating in SNFCCs events and activities. So the character metaphorically lives “Here and There” at the same time, in order to give the feeling that in one way or another, during a lockdown or not, we will be together and we will celebrate Christmas with SNFCC. 
 
What a year for our characters as well! We really hope that we will not see them in masks again.
 
 
We started sketching and storyboarding the different scenes based on the “Here and There” concept and on the activities and events of SNFCC. We came up with a calendar of little animated spots. Everyday of November SNFCC posted one short video, in order to promote the 1st of December, which is the day the celebrations started. It was really fun but challenging to match the home edition state of the character, with the in-the-window celebrating mode.
 
 
Same as every year, for the SNFCC’s Christmas campaign, we design a batch of diverse characters to be the protagonists of our little stories. We needed characters from all ages and ethnicities (and sometimes pets or animal characters) as SNFCC welcomes everyone. We also designed many elements and props in order to create our scenes and start the animation.
 
 
 

Every year, this universe we create for SNFCC, transforms into a Christmas identity for the cultural center.

Characters and elements decorate the website and all the social media accounts of SNFCC. Also they are being transformed into printed material like posters and bus station prints and spread through the city of Athens.
 
 
Facts & Credits
Client  SNFCC (Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center)
Created by  Odd Bleat
Creative Direction / Art Direction  Yannis Zoumakis, Manos Gerogiannis
Illustrations, Art Direction Itsacat Studio
Additional Design   Spyros Loran, Yannis Zoumakis
Animation  Spyros Loran, Manos Gerogiannis
Production  Marianna Papachristodoulou
Music, Sound Design, Mixing and Mastering  MD Recording Studios, Nickos Michalodimitrakis
Additional music and SD  Dimitris Sakellaris
Graphic Design  Bend

Links: ODD BLEAT

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