THE ENDLESS LETTER: WEB EXPERIENCE

TitleTHE ENDLESS LETTER: WEB EXPERIENCE
BrandRT
Product/ServiceCULTURAL WEBSITE
Category C03. Data Visualisation
Entrant RT CREATIVE LAB Moscow, RUSSIA
Idea Creation RT CREATIVE LAB Moscow, RUSSIA
Media Placement RT CREATIVE LAB Moscow, RUSSIA
PR RT CREATIVE LAB Moscow, RUSSIA
Production RT CREATIVE LAB Moscow, RUSSIA
Post Production RT CREATIVE LAB Moscow, RUSSIA
Credits
Name Company Position
Kirill Karnovich-Valua RT Creative Lab Creative Director
Gleb Burashov RT Creative Lab Social Media Strategy
Ivor Crotty RT Creative Lab Producer
Ania Fedorova RT Creative Lab Producer
Ivan Fursov RT Creative Lab Researcher
Lilly Kazakova RT Creative Lab PR
Ekaterina Kulikova Red Collar Producer
Denis Lomov Red Collar Creative Director of the Web Design Team
Maxim Makarychev N/A Music
Elena Medvedeva RT Creative Lab Producer
Ekaterina Motyakina RT Creative Lab Producer
Eldar Salamov RT Creative Lab Producer, Video Edit, Music
Revaz Todua RT Creative Lab Art Director
Margo Tskhovrebova RT Creative Lab Manager

Describe the creative idea

Between 1941 and 1945, over 10 billion letters were posted and delivered in the USSR. To mark Victory Day celebrating the defeat of Nazi Germany, we researched a unique collection of 7,000 war-time letters stored for decades in family archives. From hundreds of emotional quotes, we created an “endless” flow of digital letters on a 3D canvas where stories of real people are given new life through interactive digital experiences. “Endless Letter” is a unique graphic series featuring hundreds of excerpts from original WW2 front-line letters with illustrations created by young design students. Emotional quotes from frontline missives are combined in a 3D space creating an endless flow of letters. Letters from military schools, from the front line, from factories, hospitals, and abandoned homes, some filled with hope, some carrying cherished last words.

Describe the execution

From thousands of such letters, we carefully selected piercing quotes to create an engaging web experience featuring a specially designed typeface. Every written symbol used in quotes is a precise copy of handwriting inscribed by victorious WW2 veterans on the Reichstag walls in 1945. The letters are displayed alongside a fixed range of objects: text, imagery, and a special particle system to create the atmosphere. The website features a range of effects that will appear depending on the context of an opened letter: raindrops, thunderstorms, fireflies, snowflakes, machine-gun bursts, sparks of flames. Human silhouettes that appear on screen after hovering on a letter as if from a mist or a cloud of smoke, are images of real people from that time cut out from archive photos. One of the biggest challenges was to create a realistic, almost photographic, motion of triangles (floating in a 3D space, shadows and angle changes upon hover, digital unfolding on-screen). We implemented a number of special algorithms to make the movement look realistic. For example, mathematical turbulence algorithms were used in modeling snowflakes and flames. Lighting effects enabled us to make the scenes more natural. Among them are flashes of lightning in the rain, the orange backlight of the flames, and the spotlight effects on the bullets that appear from below. We partnered with Moscow’s RANEPA Design School to create artistic illustrations to accompany each quote. The 4-hour original soundtrack adds to the atmosphere. Together with the music and illustrations the letter phrases create a touching emotional effect. One can vividly imagine how the letter writers missed their homes, worried for their mothers and fathers, desired to live, and went to their death.