Ahead of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, we're highlighting creative talents behind some of the year's most promising work and whose presence is sure to be felt on the Croisette. Here, the team that made a familiar social platform feel completely new and in the process, made their client feel totally fresh too.
Freelance writer Martin Baker likes to describe the New York Public Library’s “Instanovels” as an idea that’s “wrong in the right way.” Unlike social media platforms, which are designed to help us stay up to date with what’s going on in the world in a matter of seconds, it was an effort that forced people to “slow down.”
Conceived with his former partner, Mother New York creative Lauren Van Aswegen, the effort placed entire novels, like Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” and Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” on NYPL’s Instagram account.
The campaign’s aim was to communicate the NYPL’s mission to inspire lifelong learning and knowledge through its social platforms. Going into the Cannes Lions festival, the work is already in a prime spot, having made the Titanium shortlist.
Each novel, which unfolds through Instagram Stories, opens with a “cover” in the form of whimsical animation—like a minitrailer pulling readers into the novels’ worlds. Along with selecting the most compelling artists for each job, “we spent a lot of time on finding the right typeface, type size,” Van Aswegen recalls. They debated the color of the pages, whether the text should be left or right justified.