Major Project: Banana Fish

The focus of my major project was a promotional branding package for a Netflix-like tv series. The aim of the project was to create meaningful promotional material, that conveys the story of the television series. Many promotional materials nowadays focus mainly on flashy, cinematic aesthetics. They don’t make use of the story elements. Yes, a master/hero image is important, but I feel like many tv shows miss out on exploring the themes of the series through the promotional package. This is the main reason why I chose to do a promotional branding package as my major project. I wanted to use symbolism and a variety of visual techniques, to create an effective branding package that connects to people.

I created a promotional Branding package and title/opening
sequence for a live-action Television Series that is an adaptation of a book, called Banana Fish. The promotional package includes a series of digital posters, Billboard Posters, Animated Social media ads and Logo. The main part of the promotional package/branding is the title/opening sequence.

The story of Banana Fish consists of 6 parts, spread across 19 volumes
(Books). The story is set in New York and captures the war between a mafia boss named Dino and a young gang leader named Ash searching for redemption. Ash befriends a photographer and they both uncover a conspiracy that threatens the world. The majority of the story focuses on Ash’s friendship with the photographer. Banana Fish is very much about corruption, power and redemption. The books make it a point to explore the themes of the story through imagery and symbolism. For example, the use of animals. Animals, especially birds, play a significant role in
terms of symbolism in the world of banana fish. This is because Birds are often seen as a symbol of freedom and freedom is one of the major themes of the story.

Logo ideas

I had a lot of different ideas for logo. At first, I thought it would be a
good idea to have the logo reference New York. The story is set in New York and includes a lot of New York culture. For the final logo, I decided to go with a bold, but sleek font and the colour yellow. Below are the initial logo ideas.

These are the initial Logo designs I have made. I wanted the logo to look modern. I also wanted to include some New York references.

Billboard Posters and Digital Posters

I wanted the digital posters to symbolise or convey a
message from the story. Each Poster included something that related back to the themes of the story. For example, one of the posters includes a torn American flag. This represents corruption in the story. The use of colours was very important in the poster designs. Each of the colours used represented a theme from the story. For example, purple for power and red for fate/corruption. For the billboard Posters, I decided to stick with the theme of foreshadowing and symbolism.

Social Media

For the social media ads, the idea was to make 4 short Instagram posts, that were about the characters of the story. The design of the ad posts focused more on animated typography. Each Instagram ad included keywords or themes that described certain characters in the banana fish story. I also created 2 Instagram story ads. In the final version, I ended up centring the text and adding background images. I went with a bold font because I wanted the text to stand out.

Opening Sequence

The concept for the opening sequence changed a number of times. For the new concept, I
did a lot of visual research that really helped me finalise the idea. One example of this, was
looking at existing opening sequences.

The idea was to have 6 different opening sequences for each part of the banana fish story.
For example, the opening for part 1 could focus on banana fish. The opening for part 2
focused on the protagonist, Ash. The idea was to include different quotes from the books
that related to specific story arcs. Later on, I decided that making 6 opening sequences was too time consuming, so I made only 1 sequence. I created some style frames to show the concept of the other opening sequences. Below is the storyboard I created for the final opening sequence. A Voiceover was included with the animation.

The quote of the opening sequence was, "Banana Fish, such rare but gluttonous and self-destructive creatures. It is either a brave or foolish man that wishes to catch a banana fish. Those who come across a banana fish at sea, are struck with despair and ultimately destroyed. Such is the fate of those who chase the banana fish." I chose this quote for the opening because I thought it did a great job of foreshadowing the events of the story. I wanted to make the sequence as ominous as possible. In this sequence, there are two fishermen at sea trying to catch fish. They catch a banana fish, but when they try to reel it in, the fishing line starts to erode and the water turns dark. The banana fish escapes and the fishermen’s boat sinks into the sea. The screen fades to black and the logo/title card

appears.

This is the storyboard for the first opening sequence. There will be a Voiceover of the quote that goes with the animation.

In this sequence, there are two fishermen at sea trying to catch fish. They catch a banana fish, but when they try to reel it in, the fishing line starts to erode and the water turns dark. The banana fish escapes and the fishermen’s boat sinks into the sea. The screen fades to black and the logo/title card appears. This opening sequence is meant to foreshadow the events of the main story. At the moment, the duration of the sequence will be 40-60 seconds