FCB Zurich combined emotions and typography in their “Emography” project for MTV Mobile, a new Facebook app that allows users to express their emotions via typographical selections, eliminating the need for emojis or abbreviated summations of emotions — at least in theory.
To accomplish this, FCB Zurich created a special font for each of the eight basic human emotions: curiosity, surprise, fear, sadness, contempt, rage, happiness, and disgust. Users select a recipient in the Facebook app, type their message, and select their chosen Emography, which is displayed as a video message. Some of the Emography choices are more successful than others at conveying their intended emotions. Emographies for sadness (The Crying Font) and rage (The Broken Glass Font), for example, make sense as visual displays of those emotions, and convey them well. The Confetti Font, however, used for surprise, doesn’t really fit that emotion particularly well. Others, such as the Emographies for contempt and curiosity, work better in theory than in practice. Additionally, FCB Zurich missed out on the opportunity to somehow convey laughter in typographical form and free users from the ubiquitous “LOL,” which is too bad. Still, it’s a pretty cool idea, and with the service, “MTV mobile demonstrates not just technical know-how as the first Swiss provider of a dedicated text message service, but also gives the young target group an effective tool with which to communicate all emotions.” Check out the video above to learn more about the app, and stick around for credits after the jump.
Credits:
Client: MTV mobile / Sunrise Communications AG
Senior MarCom Manager, Segment Young & Youth: Cristian Vaccariello
Senior Proposition Manager, Segment Young & Youth: Martin Hufschmid
Marketing Manager, Viacom International: Michael Francken
Marketing Manager, Viacom Switzerland: Sanja Ruggiero
Agency: FCB Zürich & WW
Executive Creative Directors: Dennis Lück, Luis Dias
Senior Copy Writer: Sören Schröder
Senior Art Director: Marcin Baba
Client Service Director: Mark Becher
Partners:
App programming: Drei Elemente, Germany
Film Production: WirzFraefelPaal, Zurich
Producer: Nina Wirth, Stefan Fraefel
Post Production: Stefan Grandjean
Director: Adrian Wisard