Title	THE ENDLESS LETTER: WEB EXPERIENCE
Brand	RT
Product/Service	CULTURAL 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

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.