The Joy of Books
Books are more than pages of text and images and this gorgeous stop-motion animation video for Type Books, in Toronto Canada, reminds us of the joys of books. It also helps to remind us of the joy of wandering though the cramped shelves of the local neighbourhood bookstore, deciding which book has the potential to delight us. Even though I myself am a technology lover and I do love being able to read a book or magazine on my iPad, this video reminds me of feeling the printed pages, the smell of the paper of a new book and it sure makes me want to explore a little bookstore to find a new treasure to curl up and get lost in. I think that’s why this beautiful creation is so inspiring and in the short time since it’s release has had well over a million hits on YouTube and gone viral over the internet.
It is a lovingly crafted video that imagines what happens after the bookstore closes, with the books moving, dancing, changing in a domino-like effect and even reading one another. It’s whimsical, magical and inspiring.
What I also love about this video is that it was created by the owners (Sean Ohlenkamp and Joanne Saul) of the bookshop themselves with the help of 25 volunteers. It helps though, that Sean Ohlenkamp is also an associate creative director at a Toronto-based advertising agency and has created some other beautiful campaigns and stop-motion animation, you can see here.
“After organizing our bookshelf almost a year ago…my wife and I (Sean Ohlenkamp) decided to take it to the next level. We spent many sleepless nights moving, stacking, and animating books at Type bookstore in Toronto. Everything you see here can be purchased at Type Books.”
Stop-motion animation is incredibly intensive, as everything is shot by frame-by-frame. Each change is a new scene. The owners and team of volunteers shot this video over four nights, starting as soon as the shop shut at 6pm, right through to 10am. Sean has estimated that each second contains approximately 10 frames, so in the almost 2 minutes of this video there’s about 1,200 frames.
I myself admire the time and energy this would have taken moving around every book for each frame, but a wonderful end result that’s spreading around the world, is worth it. What do you think of this campaign? Are you inspired to head out to a bookstore and buy a book to read this weekend?
Yours in awesome advertising,
Dawn
