Back To The Lake

It was such a pleasure to stumble across design shop MK12's animation piece for Guided By Voices' song "Back To The Lake". (Watch it here.) This motley bunch created one of the most satisfying combinations of digital effects, live action and music I've ever come across. Yes, I'm a little late to the party on this - the video was online months ago as part of a Coca-Cola multimedia experiment called M5. As MK12 member Matt Fraction explained, 5 design shops, including MK12, were chosen to take part in the project to design bottles and create animation pieces. The other design shops involved were Lobo, Designer's Republic, Rex & Tennant McKay, and Cavia. I was fortunate enough to have been unaware of the corporate strings tied to MK12's video so that I could appreciate it on it's own merits. Pitchfork was of course being droll when it expressed the following about M5:

'According to the M5 website, the soda giant approached five style-conscious design groups to create "visions of optimism" through forward-thinking Coke ad campaigns. Positive thinking via cola consumption? God, that's a depressing thought.'

Humour aside, is there any good that can come of corporate sponsorship? MK12's Matt Fraction explains,

'Coke was a sponsor, really: they made it all happen and left everyone alone to do the work. No product placement, no credit, etc. They didn't want a Coke commercial. They wanted to commission a piece of work from us.'

If the astounding quality of the "Back To The Lake" video is any indication(and furthermore without any visible signs of corporate logos), I think Coca-Cola has maintained a distance that is applaudable. Of course Coca-Cola has an agenda. Coca-Cola gets from the design shops creative designs for it's new line of aluminum bottles, but the M5 website and it's accompanying videos are works of art that the design shops can take pride in and add to their portfolio of work which I hope'll garner them more work in the future.
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Watch/Download MK12's animation piece for Guided By Voices' "Back To The Lake" as well as the accompanying 'Making Of' video.

Jungle Life San Francisco neatly encapsulates the M5 project.

Computer Arts has a good article exploring corporate sponsorship and the involvement of big business in art and graphic design.