Highjinks
Contents:
Motion Graphics, Interactive Game, Accordion Book, POV Videos
Being tall is often praised as a universally good trait by society, but they never consider the negatives that tall people face. The reality is that tall people suffer a lot throughout their daily lives, but they aren't allowed to complain about it without severe pushback from society.
To cope with their struggles, tall people turn to humor and making fun of situations they find themselves in. Shorter people can learn a little bit about tall people problems this way, but it isn't quite enough for them to get the full picture. This is where Highjinks comes in; the goal of this project is to entertain taller people who struggle with their height, and to inform shorter people who don't fully understand the problems tall people face.
A user survey was created to understand the audience and how Highjinks should approach the topic of height. The survey showed that everyone found height jokes funny to some extent, some people want to be a little taller or reach that oh-so-important 6'0" mark without understanding the full consequences, and no one has really thought much about the benefits or downsides of being tall, including tall people themselves.
Our target audience focuses on three distinct groups that see height differently. There's a shorter woman who doesn't know much about tall people, an extremely tall man who struggles with his height, and an average man that wants to be taller without knowing the consequences.
The brand identity for Highjinks is based around deeply hidden details you really have to search for, in the same way that taller people face tons of smaller issues. Pixel art was chosen as the aesthetic because it's more difficult to portray ideas across to the viewer, in the same way that taller people can't properly express their struggles to the world.
The typography uses a very tall font paired with a short and round font for contrast, as well as a pixelated font to match the aesthetics. The color palette seems innocent at first until you pay attention to the HEX codes, then you realize that every single thing about Highjinks is meant for laughs, down to it's very core.
Six interstitials were created to showcase some of the physical problems that taller people face, such as seeing over bathroom stalls, losing their hands to ceiling fans, and not fitting in cars or desks. These videos are designed to be short and sweet, explaining how height is the only way for these scenarios to exist, and how being tall makes it worse.
These interstitials were uploaded to YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok as short-form content, where viewers can easily understand what's going on and learn in a quick manner. The animations play first to catch their attention, before hitting them with the joke to explain the struggles of tall people, and ending off with a call-to-action to try the game... wait, a game?
An interactive game was created as a counterpart of the interstitials; with those, you could passively watch and learn about physical problems of being tall, but with the game, you have to actively think about social situations that tall people find themselves in. Two stories were created with five questions each, one about doing a run for groceries and the other about trying to fit on an airplane.
The goal with the interactive game is to put anyone into the shoes of a tall person and let them live out what it's like to be a tall person, physically and socially. The answers to some of the questions are purposefully confusing and sometimes contradictory, which further illustrates how difficult it can be to do the right thing when people only see you for your height alone.
By the way, is this webpage too tall for you yet? Too bad.
This seven-foot accordion book takes the information from the interstitials and the interactive game, and literally beats you over the head with it by listing just about every tall problem. You can read it like a normal book and read through the struggles, or stand on the back cover and extend it to find that a tall human was the background for the book all along.
Because I'm 6'5" (195cm) and have extensive experience being in these situations throughout my life, it was relatively easy to insert myself into the book by making all of the images about me. Taking off the training wheels and going all out to explain every tall people problem in excruciating detail works better when there's visual examples to go with them.
To continue along with inserting myself into Highjinks, I recorded a series of POV videos to show my perspective on tall problems that I face, such as trying to walk down stairs and not fitting in my own basement.
These videos were made using the website maple.pet/webgbcam, which adds a pixelated filter to my phone camera. I went out into the world and recorded every tall problem I could find; each video illustrates a separate issue, and just about all of them are daily occurences for me.
Highjinks is dedicated to my dad, who unfortunately passed away during it's creation. He was always focused on making people laugh and ensuring everyone was having a good time, essentially the life of the party. While he wasn't too tall, only standing at 5'10" (178cm), a lot of his spirit and lighthearted humor made it's way into Highjinks.
