WEBBY’S AWARD ENTRIES:

THE WASHINGTON POST: THE SIGNATURE SKILLS OF SIMONE BILES (PARIS 2024)

The Washington Post celebrates the five unique skills invented by US gymnast Simone Biles
to push the boundaries of gymnastics.

Direction, Design, Animation

Company: KAPWA STUDIOWORKS
Client: The Washington Post
Contact details: hello@kapwa.co

Kapwa worked closely with the Washington Post Art and Design teams to create a series of stylised animated rich media digital articles, social media content and animations that lived across all their platforms, to celebrate Simone Biles’ groundbreaking contributions to gymnastics ahead of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Kapwa analysed Simone Biles’ footage and designed and created hand-drawn, frame-by-frame animations which broke down Biles’ moves. The work was a viral hit, activating Simone Biles’ fanbase - in the US and internationally, with Washington Post’s first Instagram social media post, garnering over 230,000 likes within the first 24 hours. The viral reach of the project culminated in a special feature for the studio with Adobo Magazine as a response to the success of the work.

Websites/Mobile Sites

The primary launch of this project was through a rich media article on The Washington Post. The article featured full-bleed, stylised animations depicting Simone Biles' moves, seamlessly integrated with illustrated and written breakdowns of the key components of Simone's signature moves.

Social

The campaign was a viral hit on social media activating Simone Biles’ fanbase - in the US and internationally, with Washington Post’s first Instagram social media post, garnering over 230,000 likes within the first 24 hours, currently sitting at over 780,000 likes. The viral reach of the project culminated in a special feature for the studio with Adobo Magazine as a response to the success of the work.

Film/Video (Animation)

Our animation team studied key reference footage of Simone Biles' technical performances, and broke them down and combined them into miniature cinematic set pieces using a hybrid of rotoscoping, hand-drawn frame-by-frame animation, watercolour textures and digital compositing to create unique stylised animations. Extra care was taken to  accurately capture the technical points of Simone's skills, as well as her likeness.

CREDITS

KAPWA
(Animation)
Robertino Zambrano (Creative Director)
Dulce Aguilar (Producer)
Aki Clayton & Alyssa Mullen (Directors and Lead Animators)
Jin Hien Lau & Theo Sakurai Dahlstrom (Animators)
Maristelle Tandog (Production Assistant)

WASHINGTON POST
Art Direction by Beth Broadwater
Story by Emily Giambalvo
Video graphics: Brian Monroe
Design and Development: Frank Hulley-Jones & Jake Crump
Design Editors: Virginia Singaryar & Brian Gross