In brief: Museum of Happiness x Hannah Jacobs

The Museum of Happiness is a social enterprise with a mission to help people understand the science behind happiness. Based on the concept that happiness is a skill that requires learning and practice, the London-based nonprofit offers events and training that combine fun activities with practical advice for people who want to improve their wellbeing.

The organization was founded in 2016 by Shamash Alidina, a mindfulness teacher, and Vicky Johnson, a youth mentor, after the two met at a charity event. Her original idea was to create a physical museum that explores mindfulness, happiness, and positive psychology – "but then we found out how much it costs to open a museum … and we decided to host events instead," says Alidina.

After holding small events in London, the two decided to host a winter happiness festival in January 2016, coinciding with Blue Monday (probably the unlucky day of the year). With a huge ball pit for adults, attentive art courses and a program with uplifting discussions and workshops, the much needed rest from the setting and the darkness of January was a great success for the Londoners. The list of events went viral and over 10,000 people attended the event. The festival was featured in Sky and BBC News.

Since then, the Museum of Happiness has hosted events ranging from laughing yoga, mindfulness sessions, to group activities where participants do friendly things – such as care packages for the homeless in London. It spent a year in a special room in the UK's largest homeless shelter and another year with events at the Canvas Cafe in Shoreditch. It has also organized free workshops and experience popups for schoolchildren and the elderly at risk of depression and isolation, and regularly hosts paid events for corporate customers to help fund their work in local communities.

In addition to these public events, the Museum of Happiness offers personal and online training for people who want to help spread happiness in their own communities. The happiness mediator course is aimed at teachers, educators and community leaders and deals with topics ranging from gratitude and friendliness to mindfulness, self-compassion and finding meaning. As with all of the museum's programs, it is based on scientific research and aims to equip participants with tools and techniques that can be learned and shared, and offers general advice on training and coaching.

For our On Brief project, we commissioned director, animator and illustrator Hannah Jacobs to create a series of animations for the online course. In collaboration with CR, Facebook and the Museum of Happiness developed a short message and message for the campaign highlighting the focus on science-based techniques, as well as a call to action asking participants to register for the course. Jacobs then developed a series of animations to bring this message to life. Abstract shapes and playful characters were used to attract people and to capture the idea of promoting and spreading happiness.

Jacobs was particularly interested in the fact that her animations have a broad appeal – "Happiness is such a personal and abstract emotion, and I wanted to make sure that the whole thing felt inclusive and didn't feel like it was demographic or targeted a certain type of person. I wanted to make sure it felt accessible to everyone, which is a kind of Museum of Happiness ethos, ”she says.

Inspired by the idea that happiness is something that needs to be practiced and worked through over time, Jacobs decided to portray the subject through a number of forms that change and change. “I thought that this was a good way to represent something that is abstract and evolving and can take many forms for every person. That was the core idea that runs through each of the animations, and from there I thought about different creative ways of expressing it with different characters. I knew I wanted characters in it to make it feel a little more reliable, so I started to scribble a lot of ideas about how the shape would interact with people and how I could have different topics for each one. "

The process started with Jacobs sketching ideas before creating style frames to show how animations would flow

The process started with Jacobs designing ideas before creating a series of style frames that he could share with Facebook and the Museum of Happiness. These style frames provided an overview of the visual alignment and the color palette for animations that come from the core brand colors of the Museum of Happiness. "I pasted different tones around these core colors to create a nice palette, and then I started figuring out the design and characters. From there I built the storyboard, so I went back to the paper and started thumbnails Then I brought it back to Photoshop, neatly created it, and created an animation that is basically the entire storyboard timed on a timeline. I can find out the pace and how everything goes from one shot to the next will flow, ”she adds.

After the animation was created, Jacobs worked with animator Harriet Gillian to bring designs to life before coloring each frame in Photoshop with different brushes. Natasha Pollock, Bianaca Beneduci and Hayley Warnham supported the coloring, and the animations were composed by Zach Ellams with music by Kerry Leatham.

Character sketches by Hannah Jacobs

While working on a variety of jobs, Jacobs created animations specifically for Facebook and Instagram for the first time. The project required her to think carefully about timing and how to balance creative storytelling with the need to immediately grab people's attention and communicate a clear message in a matter of seconds.

"I think it taught me to be a little more economical and I learned that you can convey a lot in a short time. You don't need these big epic scenes to communicate with people – it's actually a good lesson, to take things back, ”she adds.

Visualizing a topic as loaded as happiness is a challenging task. But Jacobs has managed to create animations that are fun, engaging, and informative. Their 2D frame-by-frame approach gives the creative a distinctive handmade feel and helps it stand out from the wealth of content presented to people in their feeds.

Hannah Jacobs style frame

As Alidina emphasizes, happiness is not just about feeling happy. It is also about learning to accept and deal with the full range of emotions experienced. That is why the Museum of Happiness wants to combine playful exercises with more serious self-reflection in its programs.

"Happiness has two elements: one is a feeling of joy and the other a meaning. So the pleasure element has to do with fun, joy and laughter, and the other element does things like mindfulness activities and things that are more reflective," explains Alidina "Although the events that we carry out contain this funny and lighthearted element, there is also this deeper aspect, which is about cultivating happiness from within and cultivating the right attitude and mindset so that we are open and being present and not just being able to think about ourselves, ”he adds.

This balance is reflected in Jacobs' animations, with a rainbow of colors reflecting the full range of human emotions. "We wanted it not only to embody the fun side of our business, but also to feel that it was something deeper," added Alidina. "The animation has this wide range, but at the same time it has this joyful energy."

Kat Hahn, Northern Europe director at Facebook Creative Shop, worked closely with Jacobs and the Museum of Happiness to provide advice on best practices for Facebook and to ensure that ads attract people's attention. As Hahn explains, it was important to consider the context in which animations are displayed – and how the audience tends to consume content on Facebook and Instagram – in order to give the campaign the best chance of success.

An interesting aspect of mobile behavior is the speed at which people scroll. It's insanely fast … so you have to do your best and show your brand and an enticing picture from the start

"In Facebook's creative shop, we first look at people's behavior and that informs everything we do. An interesting aspect of mobile behavior is the speed at which people scroll. It's insanely quick (1.7 seconds on average) … so you have to do your best and show your brand and an enticing image from the start, ”she explains.

“There are some really good best practices for all of the creative assets available on our platform: keep it focused, put the brand first, hold it under ten seconds, and make it all in one Sound-off environment works. Above all, it's about having stunning graphics that deliver Hannah's illustration style in heaps, ”adds Hahn.

Hahn also recommends previewing the mobile subject on a mobile phone. This may sound like common sense, but is often overlooked in the creative process – and can have a decisive impact on the success of a campaign. "You can upload your animated or rough animation to Creative Hub and easily create a model of your ad, ”she says. “Checking the work on a big screen (like most of us) can be very misleading. This way you can see if your ad works on a smaller screen. Can you still read the copy? Is it as effective as you want it to be? " adds Hahn.

For the Museum of Happiness, the project offered the opportunity to experiment with original animations – a new format for the team. Alidina hopes that the resulting campaign will help raise awareness of the museum's wider work and encourage people to sign up for the online course.

Still images from Hannah Jacobs & # 39; animations for the Museum of Happiness

"This is the first time that we have used custom animations. We have already used photos and videos from our events and have custom branding. When creating ads, however, we usually do this very quickly (internally). "

"Since we are a tiny organization – fewer than a handful of employees – we don’t have big budgets, so we wanted to create something that could be reused in different ways. Assuming it's popular and encourages people to get involved with our programs, we'd like to use more animation. We hope to keep in touch with Hannah and we would like to work with her again in the future. "

On Brief is part of To inspire, a partnership between Creative Review, Facebook and Instagram to showcase outstanding creative work on both platforms. Creative people are paid for their participation in On Brief. For more Inspire content, visit creativereview.co.uk/inspire

museumofhappiness.org;; hellohannahjacobs.com

In brief: Museum of Happiness x Hannah Jacobs

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