Xavier Monney continually enacts awe with his typographic animations

Xavier Monney’s high-tech and seamlessly designed animations create memorable assets for its clients. Working with the fashion powerhouses of today, from Burberry to Nike, the animator maintains a strong sense of style within his typography-centred creations. Of his consistent sense of creative autonomy, Xavier tells It’s Nice That: “It’s important to me to sustain a certain identity in my work. This whole visual universe was brought to life while I was experimenting, I had no boundaries at that time”. Now working with the highest calibre of clients imaginable, Xavier applies his unique style to projects, which can prove difficult as “you have to come up with design solutions rather than experiment, but the work has more value as it has been done with constraints”.

Last October, in an interview with us, Xavier revealed feelings of disillusionment around pursuing a career in graphic design. All that has changed now, with the opportunities to work with brands he admires such as Instagram and Crack magazine; “I used to fear the fact that getting a job in this industry can be hard but I feel like I can relax now”. The animator further adds that “the only thing that hasn’t changed is the tendency to overthink my work and worry about doing better with every new project. It’s stressful but I guess it’s what all designers should go through.”

Currently working remotely as a visual designer for Google Brand Studio, the animator is looking to continue to explore his own work in his free time. “For the last two years, my work has been pretty much type focused”, explains Xavier. “I’ve been messing around with 3D for a long time but only did abstract visuals at first, injecting typography in the animations became a way to connect my visual world with graphic design”. Originally influenced by internet art and vaporware, the designer has developed a sophisticated and forward-thinking sense of style through the hypnotic movement of words that create satisfying optical illusions.

An example of this is Xavier’s animation work for Nike, when the fashion brand contacted the designer and his good friend Anthony Velen to pitch for the campaign with the intention to promote the new Air Jordan shoe in a futuristic way. Xavier credits the talented variety of specialists who have collaborated to create a successfully memorable campaign; Dimensions Studios worked on the 3D scans, Ondrej Zunka on the 3D animation, not to mention Nike, and Sebastian Pataki who brought his typographic expertise to the project. Through a combination of extended, italicised and stretched type, which flexibly moves to show the variety of attractive angles, the campaign certainly delivers on the brief’s futuristic aim.