Link to creative brief

Tools Used:

• Procreate

• Procreate Dreams

• Adobe Illustrator

• Adobe After Effects

Marshall Television is an illustrated broadcast channel. It is a fictional media network with hints of nostalgia, but it is programmed with content that spans every era, even futures that don’t exist yet. Marshall Television (or MTv) is where I think out loud (or commentate) in illustration. 

The Inspiration

I’m a child of the 90s, and like most of my generation, I miss the good old days. In particular, I miss good television, and a big part of what I remember good about TV back in the day was music programming. MTV, BET and VH1 all played a major part in my formative years, and I attribute a lot of my taste in music, aesthetics, and fashion to these networks that took Black music and Black culture seriously as art forms deserving of curatorial care. I want to pay homage to these institutions by creating my own. What would I program? What audience would I aim to serve? How would I curate content that spoke to viewers of all ages? 

For this project, I had 3 key constraints:

1. It had to be made using a new skill/tool.

2. It had to be created digitally.

3. It had to tell a story.

In addition to that, I wanted to let my instincts do the driving. It was important for me to use this project as an opportunity to take inspiration from a past work and really take it as far as I could. When I was illustrating “SO HAPPY” earlier this year, I toyed with other TV formats and that became the seed that started the Marshall Television idea. I found myself reaching for broadcast conventions without planning to—test screens, studio bumpers, title cards reminiscent of a Golden Age cartoon. What was supposed to be one illustrated piece kept revealing more of a world around it, and Marshall Television is what I found when I followed those instincts. Using that as the basis for this exploration, connecting dots and merging creative ideas flowed naturally during the creative process. I was able to sit with (and in) the concept.

The Outcome

The answer to my questions above came to me as I was waiting for the train home early last week. I committed to doing an animated TV bumper that presents Marshall Television and answers those questions all in one swoop. This animation also fulfills the goals I set out for myself: I created it using a new digital tool, and it tells a story. Although I used Procreate Dreams in Project 01, I barely scratched the surface; I still consider that a new tool. 

Marshall TV borrows the visual and structural conventions of music television. Key visual elements I wanted to dial up include the test screen and beep, analog TV sets, the idea of channel-flipping, programming blocks, studio bumpers and lineup cards. 

Aesthetically, those visual elements became the shell for programming content that I believe lives across time. What’s a channel that calls itself a purveyor of pop culture and music programming without references to The Michael Jackson's "Thriller" music video, The Prince's "Purple Rain" film, The Beyoncé's iconic Coachella set? The lineup had to include tributes to past cultural moments, editorial commentary on the present, original narrative work, and speculation about what's ahead. My channel exists in a protopia:

• Video Vault - Preserves and celebrates music-video history, honoring the artists and moments that shaped an era.

• Encore - Celebrates live performance and spectacle, capturing the energy of an artist at their peak.

• Headlines - Delivers real news through a hopeful, forward-looking lens — reporting the truth of today while pointing toward a protopia.

• The Feed - Part sitcom/part podcast, it highlights pop culture moments and satirizes present-day gossip, celebrity and meme culture.

• The Marshall Picture Show - Champions cinema as cultural memory, revisiting the films that defined a generation.

The Process

Tactically, it took a bit of time; illustration took the most over the span of 5 days, and the actual animation took a nonstop 12+ hours. I am an artist, thus I am extremely detail-oriented and a perfectionist. This is a gift and a curse: a gift because I am always satisfied with the outcome, and I am, more often than not, blown away at my abilities to take something that exists in my mind and create something tangible; a curse because I obsess over the smallest things, am always noticing what could be tinkered with some more, and probably spend too much time on things that "don't really matter." In my creative mind, everything matters.

I intended to use After Effects with this project, mainly for motion design and text effects, but as I used Procreate Dreams more, I realized it had all the tools I needed for this project. Both Procreate and Procreate Dreams make my creative practice enjoyable, and I was even more comfortable with it this time because I had time to explore and push the bounds. I’m excited to become a powerhouse user.

This was an effort in not only pulling together a myriad of references and inspiration; it was also an effort in utilizing many talents and skills at once. Creative muscles worked during this project include:

Conceptual and World-building Muscles:

• Systems Thinking

• Speculative Fiction / World-building

• Curatorial Thinking

• Narrative Structure

Visual and Craft Muscles:

• Illustration

• Iconography

• Typography & Identity Design

• Design (color theory, composition, aesthetics)

Time-based Muscles:

• Animation

• Timing & Pacing

• Motion Design

• Audio-visual Synchronization

Cultural & Referential Muscles:

• Media Literacy

• Music History

• Genre Translation

Project Management and Process Muscles:

• Scope Discipline

• Iterative Development

• Documentation and Articulation

  
  

What started as a quick creative exercise a few months ago has since turned into an exploration in world-building. The larger project is a tribute to a specific moment in media, when television was curated by people with taste, when music videos were art objects, when a channel could feel like a room you visited rather than a stream you swiped through. I’m not necessarily trying to bring that moment back; however, the sensibility of that moment is still worth practicing. Illustration is my way of doing just that.