Elastic’s Benjamin Woodlock recently took home the Emmy Award for Outstanding Graphic Design – Documentary for his breathtaking work on Apple TV+’s Omnivore. As creative director, Benjamin crafted evocative main titles and episodic animations which proved that food is far more than sustenance and visual design is far more than decoration.
To celebrate this well-deserved win, MakeMake sat down with Benjamin to unpack his creative process, the visual metaphors behind those striking images, and how he turned each frame of Omnivore into a layered, cinematic story about culture, memory, and meaning.
Watch the Main Titles & Graphic Montage
What is your favorite part of the project?
My favorite part of any Elastic project is collaborating with such talented artists. On this one we were encouraged to create something unique and a little weird, and everyone on the team brought their best work to the table.
What was the creative brief or core idea that guided your design approach, and how did you translate that?
We were asked to create a title sequence and episode graphics that reflect the idea that food is always more than just food. It can be a way to explore humanity and transformation, as well as politics, social structures and so much more.
How did you start shaping the look and feel of the piece?
The show’s primary ingredients are history and culture. We started by experimenting with archival imagery and scientific illustration. We realized that we could use simple methods to make things complex, both in terms of composition and metaphor.
What part of the process was the most fun - or the most surprising?
We had a lot of fun doing a tabletop time-lapse shoot to create a flood of rice for the main title. It got a little messy, but any excuse to step away from the computer....
How did you balance staying true to the story with pushing the design in a fresh direction?
Thankfully, there was not really any push-pull. The show-runners had great taste and a sense of adventure. They invited us to develop our ideas and make a meaningful contribution to the storytelling.
What’s your favorite shot or moment, and why does it stick with you?
There’s a lot, but one that jumps out is the gallery wall that comes to life in the Banana episode to introduce our animated history of Minor C. Keith. It’s full of detail and I love the way it leads us into the sequence.
#WeMakeMakeit
