The Short and Simple Story of the Credit Crisis

With the delay we've experienced due to these darn outages, we're a bit behind on a number of posts. One of them is The Crisis of Credit Visualized, a marvellous piece of motion graphics by Jonathan Jarvis. Many of you may already have seen it, but it's just too good to run the risk somebody missing out on this.

Jonathan Jarvis is a designer based in Los Angeles who is currently practicing in the Graduate Media Design Program at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. The goal of giving form to a complex situation like the credit crisis is to quickly supply the essence of the situation to those unfamiliar and uninitiated. This project was completed as part of his thesis work exploring the use of new media to make sense of a increasingly complex world.

And make sense it does. Jason managed to make a stylish and well designed animation that is informative and educational. As one commenter on Vimeo remarks:

It's like the 50s instructional video for a new generation.

Read also about it on the excellent Motionographer. And if you feel like going through the almost 250 comments and growing – good luck.

One more thing before we let you enjoy the video. As usual we try to identify the typefaces used – we can't help it, it's a reflex. The square slab serif is… well… Square Slab Serif 711. You may know it under another name, but let's say I'd rather jump in a septic tank than link to The Once Great Type Foundry Which Is Now Owned By A Guy Who'd Rather Bully Other (Preferably Smaller) Type Foundries Than Treat His Type Designers Right. And the DIN-like soft tech face is none other than Nick Cooke's delightful Chevin.

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.