Overview
Serpentine Galleries is one of the world’s foremost contemporary art institutions. In 2021, it launched Back to Earth — an ambitious climate initiative inviting 140 leading artists, architects, and thinkers to contribute short manifestos and texts addressing the planetary crisis.
Tell Your Friends was brought in to translate this dense physical anthology beyond traditional gallery walls into a multi-channel digital motion identity, social campaign, and podcast series.
The Challenge
140 contributions from figures including Olafur Eliasson, Ai Weiwei, and Marina Abramović presented an intellectual challenge: how to translate complex climate philosophies into digital motion without diluting their gravitas.
Strategy & System Design
- Kinetic Motion Identity: Translated the physical anthology’s editorial design into dynamic motion typography and organic textures.
- Micro-Editorial Social Assets: Distilled long-form philosophical essays into short, arresting motion pieces for social distribution.
- Audio & Web Ecosystem: Developed companion assets for the long-form Back to Earth podcast and digital exhibition hubs.
Results & Impact
- Unified Campaign Language: Established the digital motion standard across podcast, social, and web touchpoints for 140 Ideas for Planet Earth.
- Subsequent Commission: Extended the visual and digital architecture to power Serpentine’s follow-up Future Art Ecosystems 2 initiative.
