Design Challenge and Design Ideas

Odo is a brand new Irish preschool animated series for 3-5 year olds set in a lush beautiful forest and centered around Odo, a little owl and his best friend Doodle, an orphan bird. As a studio we have always focussed on making design-led beautiful tangible series for kids because we know that kids have a huge appreciation of good design. In an industry that faces huge opposition to falling budgets and a huge push towards cheap shiny primary coloured 3D work, we wanted to push against this, to create a 2D world in a lush secondary colour palette. Odo is a series with a huge heart with stories based on social justice, promoting togetherness and equality and we wanted every kid in every home in every country to enjoy it.

How the brief was fulfilled

“I created Odo in 2017 and wanted to make a show that addressed some of the most important things that kids were facing then. Anxiety and depression levels were 7 times higher in kids then than they were 50 years earlier. Fast forward to 2021 and these numbers are simply off the chart. Never has there been a more important time to create a show with genuine UNIVERSAL DESIGN which spoke to kids. And we did this through comedy, great design, great characters, a score that is as organic as the design and with a heart and messages of social responsibilityh and justice. We told stories dealing with racism, migration, adoption, death. We earned the right to do that through creating characters that are visually beautiful and charming. And most of all, we deliberately chose two lead characters from either side of the Irish border at a time when Brexit is seperating us, Odo celebrates two best friends, one from Co Laios and one from Co Antrim. To captivate our audience, we created a brand new look which we call 2D3D. The entire show is digitally drawn by hand in 2D using only secondary colours. We also created four times of day and a system of lighting that allows us to change the landscapes and world easily which displays the beauty of the outdoor world at all times of day. We created a ‘3D’ lighting effect which is applied in post, making the characters pop with a slight other-world feel. And every frame of the show – probably unique for a preschool show – is colour corrected and graded. Design matters to us. Ultimately our aspirations to reach every kid in every home in every country is becoming a reality. We’ve pre-sold this series into 123 countries including RTÉ and Milkshake in UK, HBOmax in the US, ABC in Australia, KiKA in Germany and Canal+ in France.

A Northern Ireland – Poland co-production with Letko”