IBM Research: A Documentary About AI Breakthroughs Transforming Science
Challenge
IBM Research is drastically speeding up innovation, but its a complex story to tell.
Solution
We created The Fastest Path to Progress, a documentary that simplifies and humanizes accelerated discovery through quantum computing. Through documentary storytelling, striking visuals, and real researcher insights, the film makes IBM’s vision clear and compelling.
My role was to take IBMR’s design language and expand it to work in the context of this documentary. Specifically, for gfx.
A Visual System for the Film
By establishing a cohesive framework—including defined typography, color palettes, motion principles, and composition rules—we ensured that every scene aligned with the overarching IBMR brand identity and narrative vision. Our scalable design system enabled flexibility, making it easier to adapt assets across the different needs throughout the film. We neded to think through a system that allowed for four key elements, type treatments, interstitial moments, archival segments, and animated explainers.
The 2x Grid
We started with IBM’s 2x grid. We established the bounding boxes for our content. As we went through the film, we identified key graphic moments to break away from the main footage. This is where our grid came into play. It helped us create a cohesive and ordered look, and gave us the flexibility to play with a variety of layouts meant to best house the footage.
Our typography moments were inspired by the title of the film, “path to progress”. Type was led and revelead by a single line (aka a ‘path’).
To create more dynamic moments throughout the film, we used our 2x grid to bring in b-roll.
Archival Footage
The rich history of IBM’s commitment to research is represented through the carefully curated use of archival footage.
Animated Explainers
Striking data visualizations and motion graphics played a vital role in the film. Dario Gil, IBM senior vice president and director of research, summarizes the central elements of Accelerated Discovery as bits plus neurons plus qubits. The challenge was to visualize these three elements in a way that brought out the beauty and elegance and simplicity. We employed simple black-and-white lines and shapes, and used them to illustrate not just the three building blocks of accelerated discovery but complex concepts like molecular structures and sifting documents using cloud search and training AI on scientific datasets. All of the imagery was carefully crafted to harmonize with IBM Research’s robust system of brand guidelines.
Concluding graf here
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