COMOTION
2025.

CoMotion 2025 was the conference’s 16th edition, a two-day event at SCAD Savannah that opened on February 28 under the theme “Light the Way.” The film took that theme and turned it into a story: facing the unknown, making a choice, becoming something new. I reviewed shots with the team and gave notes on glow, light and composition until the sequence read as one film.

Being drawn toward something, facing uncertainty, making choices, becoming something new: that arc became Face, Choose, Become. The pitch styleframes and 3D assets were mine, with Rivai supporting, and once the direction was selected the team built on those files. From there we abstracted the moth into geometry, lines, light and motion, so it could work as a system rather than a single character. The idea of decoding stayed in the story, while the early symbols were simplified into that same language.

The rules were circle-based shapes, thin lines, controlled gradients that run warm to cold, transparent layers, and glow with depth. We used the same rules to review work: whether a frame fit the system, held its hierarchy and composition, stayed light on density, and connected to the shots around it. My own notes were mostly about restraint: drop the mosaic, shrink the glass texture, let the glow breathe instead of sitting flat, thin the curve, bring the white highlights down by about 30%.

We narrowed the type to Systemia and Iskry, and I argued for Systemia: its geometric, Swiss logic suits the shapes, and it echoes decoding, which gave us a base for the symbol thinking. When designers brought options back to me, I picked one and said why, so the next person could apply it. Notes were specific: more glow, thinner lines, cleaner compositing.

The opening was presented to emerging designers and visiting industry professionals, and the conference was covered by Motionographer ↗. For me, the clearest result is that 39 designers could contribute and the work still read as one visual system.