How to make a New Emotion

Whilst our crazy, modern world is creating new feelings and emotional states all the time, we wanted to bring a little wow-derment and show the behind the scenes of how we made some of the new emotions from our latest Gotcha4Life Mental Fitness Gym campaign.

After a bit of research, brainstorming and word-mashing, we had a short list of 15 new emotions that were particularly relevant to today’s culture.
But how do we bring to life words on a page?

We went back to the drawing board, literally, and started exploring shapes and symbols that could help make an immediate connection to the feeling we wanted to create. We also looked at the subtle shifts in expressions that changed the connotation with a shape from positive to a negative one or vice versa.

The next step was a process of compositing and retouching to add texture, depth and detail to make the new emotions not only feel real, but immediately eye-catching.

The final stage was to use new tech to bring them to life. Simple movements added a sense of panic to Brainfetti, an internal sigh to Meh-ified and increased the claustrophobia of Clusterwhelm.

Alex Davidson is Creative Partner and Co-Founder at ScienceFiction.