Span and the Emmy Award-winning performance collective Manual Cinema co-created a short film and original theatrical work entitled Countdown that combines handmade shadow puppetry, live actors, music performance, and Span’s digital animation.

Countdown follows an unnamed protagonist as she attempts to escape from numbers that frantically shift around her. Beginning with the handmade sets and projected cinematic techniques by Manual Cinema, the piece visually evolves into a 3D digital world created and animated by Span.

Countdown was conceived by partner John Pobojewski who led the art direction, design, and animation for Span’s digital landscapes together with Zach Minnich and Valeria Bernal. Manual Cinema’s Sarah Fornace, Drew Dir, and Julia Miller led the story development and puppetry performance. Music and sound was composed by Ben Kauffman and Kyle Vegter.

The numerals set throughout the piece include custom typography drawn by Valeria Bernal and Nick Adam, as well as the most amount of typefaces we’ve ever used, including: Adieu, HWT Aetna, Bodoni, Camera, Central Avenue, Dirk, Eklips, Empire Fold, Geometric, Gravity, Hoefler Text, Inline, HWT Konop, Megavolt, Sharp Grotesk, Trois Mille, United Sans and WTF Empire.

Manual Cinema use “vintage overhead projectors, multiple screens, puppets, actors, live feed cameras, multi-channel sound design, and a live music ensemble to transform the experience of attending the cinema and imbue it with liveness, ingenuity, and theatricality.” They have received national recognition by the New York Times and were featured in the 2021 film remake of Candyman directed by Nia DaCosta and produced by Jordan Peele.

One way / 9th Avenue, set in Central Avenue

Custom drawn numerals 4 and 3

Weather forecast, featuring HWT Konop, ABC Gravity and Sharp Grotesk

Running past the number 8, set in United Sans

From left to right: Dirk (4); Bodoni (23) and a yet unidentified typeface used for the number 24

Door number set in HWT Aetna

Tumbling numbers 9. Visible here are Adieu, United Sans and Hoefler Text

Trois Mille in use for the number 60, the ultracondensed numbers 40 on the right use ABC Gravity

Redrawn logotype for the RTA, lines referencing the spatial logic of the letterforms

The Regional Transportation Authority is responsible for coordinating the Chicago region’s transit system, including overseeing financing and planning together with the three major transit operators: CTA, Metra, and Pace. Span was invited to refresh the brand identity for the organization in advance of announcing the RTA’s next strategic plan — a multi-year vision of how to achieve a safe, reliable, accessible public transportation that connects people to opportunity, advances equity, and combats climate change.

Span’s new brand reflects the agency’s focus on accountability, transparency, independence, and equity — four important goals identified during five separate workshops with stakeholder teams.

The logo is a solid monogram reflecting speed and strength with an ”overline” running through the characters like a train or bus pulling into the station. The typography is a customized version of Graphik by Commercial Type, a hard-working sans serif typeface selected for maximum recognition, with modified r, t, and a characters, to better align with the visual language of the logo itself. The color palette is focused, using combinations that are ADA-compliant up to level AA+. Illustrative transit paths as well as an icon suite add additional visual expressions to represent all aspects of life around transit.

The logotype’s overline informed a pattern language that references transit routes, these went on to be used across the collateral items. These lines and curves also guided Span’s design of a custom icon library that reflects all aspects of transit throughout the region.

Infographic styles were designed for accessibility and clarity.

Social media templates

Christian Schwartz of Commercial Type customized the sans-serif typeface Graphik for Span and the RTA to better align with the form of the RTA monogram.