This year (in 2020) the theme was:

kindness

As a long-time collaborator on the product design class at MIT that is 2.009 (and in pandemic times - 2.s009), I was invited to help create the animation that would kick off the class's final presentations. My role for this animation was to provide illustrations to be used as backgrounds, specifically for the second half (starting at 59s). I was asked to help imagine and create a futuristic “kindtopia” landscape merged with MIT’s campus, to be shown in a night-time setting.

And here's the result!

Music for this video was composed and performed by the very talented Sam Watkinson.

The animators responsible for the story, the first 59 seconds, and characters and motion for the entire animation are Or Oppenheimer and Marwa AlAlawi.

To see them in more detail, here are some of my favorite backgrounds that I made for this animation:

I was also responsible for coming up with a design for a "firework hauling futuristic vehicle". Although I had other concepts, we went forward with the more humorous firework-shaped hover truck:

Final illustration of the truck: