Sir Ken Robinson’s last public talk was titled ‘My Thoughts For A Call To Unite’. Sir Ken contacted Andrew Park, founder of We are Cognitive and creator of the RSA Animates, asking him to turn the talk into an animation as a final gift to his community.

The result was ‘A Future For Us All’, an animation that frames the roots of our education system in the context of agriculture and society, and asks us to consider vital questions about how we move forward.

‘A Future For Us All’ takes Sir Ken’s final message far and wide and it’s the result of a close creative partnership between Andrew Park and Managing Senior Creative Dan Stirrup. It is an animation full of themes, references and easter eggs, and in this blog, Andrew and Dan take us through some of their most meaningful and memorable moments.

Andrew reflects on the vital importance of creativity

Our relationship with Sir Ken Robinson started when we were asked to visualise his talk at the RSA (Royal Society for Arts, Manufacturing and Commerce) in the summer of 2010 as part of the burgeoning RSA Animate series, which we created for the RSA.

Back then I wasn’t familiar with Ken or his work in the realm of education; little did we know that this would be a piece that would prove to be a springboard for the work we were pioneering and become a transformative piece of work.

For visual thinkers like us, translating words into pictures is our life’s blood. It feels like a natural process because we do it so readily and so often. For some people this process is mysterious because it is attached to creativity and for many, creativity is something that is outside of their grasp. It is what ‘creatives’ do and therefore they cannot take part in it. This is, as Ken also points out, a falsehood.

As Ken mentions in his book ‘Out of our Minds’, businesses and organisations need creativity so they can be flexible and innovative. The process that is meant to develop natural talents and abilities is education, yet sadly creativity is being side-lined to cater for more and more standardised testing. Incidentally, Dan made a great job of referencing the first animated talk by literally building upon the graphics from that piece. The school factory from the original has been replaced by a combine harvester school, to reference the two main topics of this new piece.

Andrew considers the artist’s fingerprints

Thankfully, for people like Dan and I, we have managed to come through this education system and find a home for our creativity in making animations and visualisations that help people grapple with complex information. In a lot of ways, we do not sit outside of these visualisations as creators, we are embedded in them. The process of making these images helps us to bed in the information, to understand the patterns and see the connections between disparate content. This happens organically during the creation process. Making something as rich and complex as this takes time. It is this time that allows space in the creative process for innovations to take place. Providing the nuts and bolts are in place for the message to be communicated, this space allows for some playful motifs to be included. We could call these flourishes - visual graffiti that allow us to make playful references to a wider culture as well as leave our own fingerprints on the work.

We wanted to use this blog post to make note of some of the Easter eggs and references we embedded in the work. If you want to find out a little more about the creative process for starting a project like this then please watch Dan and I being interviewed by Ken’s daughter, Kate, and son-in-law, Anthony, in this behind-the-scenes video.

Dan shares a subtle tribute to William Blake

Ken makes a clear case for how our collective anxieties, stresses, tensions, and lack of fulfilment stem from our neglect of the natural world. Who could have possibly seen that coming when the industrial revolution was at full steam? The Romantics, that’s who!

Romanticism can be characterised as an emphasis on emotion and individualism with a reverence for nature and a suspicion of science and industrialisation. The movement was prominent in the visual arts, music and literature and many will recognise the names of poets from that era, like William Wordsworth. As railway mania swept the British Isles, Wordsworth penned a poem to the Prime Minister, William Gladstone posing the question, ‘Is there no nook of English ground secure from rash assault?’, protesting the proposed extension of the Lake District railway line from Kendal to Windermere.

However, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand Wordsworths, so we opted for a more visual artist in our reference to the Romantics - William Blake. To be fair to Blake he is also well known for his poetry and prose, but he had an unmistakeably unique aesthetic in the imagery he created. He saw a vision of angels over Peckham Rye, and was reportedly no fan of dark, satanic mills. In his poem, Jerusalem, these references were probably to the orthodox churches of the establishment rather than the factories of the industrial revolution - or perhaps he was referencing both? Either way we snuck a tribute to his work amongst the ominous plumes rising from the chimney stacks in the sky in the left of the composition. It also occurred to Andrew that this angel was somehow like the peppered moth that illustrated the most direct evidence of Darwin’s theory of evolution as well as the Greek myth of Icarus, who flew too close to the sun. Who knew that such a lot of meaning could be housed in a fleeting moment?

Andrew speaks about the inclusion of J.M.W Turner’s 'Rain, Steam and Speed’

The interesting thing about collaboration is that often one artist will inform another, and this can take the work off in interesting directions. The railways were a potent symbol of industrialisation. It was an obvious decision to use a steam locomotive to herald the advent of the industrial age; the vehicle traveling at speed and literally dragging the revolution with it in its wake. When Andrew saw my sketch of this steam train traversing the viaduct he immediately thought of J.W.M Turner’s painting ‘Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway.’ It seems that Turner had found a muse in the feat of engineering that had irked Wordsworth and painted an impressionistic vision of a steam engine ploughing through the countryside in inclement weather.

Just about visible amongst the expressive brush work, you can see a hare dashing across the field below – an Easter egg of Turner’s own devising? Does the hare symbolise speed itself or perhaps the limits of technology?

This contrast between human endeavour and the natural world it aimed to subdue was so reminiscent of Ken’s speech that we couldn’t resist a subtle nod to this painting, so look out for the hare in the valley below.

Dan talks dinosaurs and celebrates important role of Mary Anning

Some further great discoveries that arose in the 19th century included great leaps in our understanding of evolution and the creatures who had called our planet home many millions of years before we arrived on the scene. Yes, I’m talking dinosaurs! It’s worth pointing out before we proceed, that I am the parent of a 6-year-old, therefore my knowledge of dinosaurs is at a peak that has not been seen since I was, well, 6 years old myself.

Without that knowledge, I might not have picked up on the small error in Ken’s speech. With the amount of dino-pedantry I am subjected to on a daily basis however, I was not about to let a 100 million year old discrepancy slip. I think our cheeky correction of Ken’s words ties in well with the theme of what is important in education – mindlessly learning rote facts and figures will not produce great minds, so I think we can forgive this little slip!

As the dinosaurs make a cameo appearance, I modelled the coastal cliffs on the Jurassic Coast in Dorset, and it seemed only right to include the mother of Palaeontology, Mary Anning. Despite being denied access to higher education, Anning made an immeasurable contribution to her field through her dedicated pursuit of knowledge.

Dan reminisces about Parklife

When it came to drawing a hilltop park, I couldn’t help but be transported back to my roots in south east London. I’d grown up amongst the green spaces of New Cross, Brockley and Greenwich and this informed the look of this scene, right down to the distant tower blocks.

Andrew found a place for Damon Albarn and Phil Daniels amongst the park’s visitors. As Phil feeds the other creatures we share this planet with (pigeons, and sometimes sparrows too) he’s found the conditions in which he can flourish. It gives him an enormous sense of well-being after all.

To top it off, Blake and Turner pop up to enjoy a drink and a chat outside the Angel and Hare. Maybe he’d had one too many when he saw those Angels in Peckham. Are we saying Daniels and Albarn are the Blake and Turner of the post-industrial age? No. But it is a catchy tune.

Andrew looks at the visual links between Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Changing Education Paradigms

It may have been obvious to some of you watching the animation who this person is. The father of civil engineering and a giant of the 19th century, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, quite an achievement for someone with diminutive stature. Brunel compensated for his modest 5-foot frame with his ingenious achievements and by wearing a really tall hat. I wanted somebody in this space to represent the industrial age. An age of heavy structures and mechanical thinking. What better way to show this thinking than to have a cutaway inside the top hat to reveal the cogs and gears of that age with some modern people caught up in that machine. Of course, there is a big nod here to the imagery of the Charlie Chaplain film, ‘Modern Times’.

I also wanted to reference our own ‘Changing Education Paradigms’ film to show a large character to represent that age. In that film we had a Victorian character too. Other references to the earlier animation can be seen on the steps of the university. Laurel and Hardy are carrying the ‘music box’ up the stairs. This references their appearance in the original film where the hapless pair can be seen carrying the same piano up a splitting double-helix staircase. As you do.

The bouncer from the first animation can also be seen making sure people with a vocational IQ cannot enter the building. The bouncer can be seen saying “You’re IQ is down so your not coming in!” which is a joke that only works visually to suggest the intelligence of the doorman himself. In the foreground of the university a large paperclip sculpture can be seen, which references the divergent thinking exercise Ken spoke of in “Changing Education Paradigms.”

Andrew gets into product placement

Our world is full of a dizzying array of products. Stuff and things. To a visual communicator, these things are useful cyphers and can be particularly helpful as markers for us when we want to communicate an idea quickly and succinctly. We can present a world of meaning encapsulated in an object. Couple that with the easily transferable visual languages of advertising and one can create symbolism which really does a lot of heavy, conceptual lifting.

One of my favourite examples in the piece is the matchbox cover for Boiling Frog matches. A made-up brand that we designed but could be genuine, due to the bizarre designs of vintage matches in their heyday. The boiling frog relates to the theory that a frog may not notice it is being boiled in water, if the water starts cold and the temperature slowly raises to boiling point, killing the frog long before 100 degrees Celsius.

The fuel can for Meteor Petrol is a companion object to the matches. The visual branding allows us to have multiple symbolic functions in that object. Meteors travel fast. They are also the reason for the mass extinction of the dinosaurs. Organisms that existed at the time of the dinosaurs have compressed into fossil fuels. The combination of petrol ignited by the matches results in the climate change that boil the frog.

Andew reveals the story behind Ken’s walking stick

This reference is quite a personal one for Kate. During the process of making the film we shared our progress and some of the early drawings. Anthony was pleased that I managed to draw Kate’s feet small. This was a happy accident. However, Kate really wanted to make the drawing of her dad represent him in a more authentic and accurate way, so she asked me to include his favourite walking stick. He had many walking sticks. But this one was his favourite, and he also had a favourite walking stick shop in London. I really enjoy putting stuff like this into our films. That personal connection, you can’t beat it.

Andrew takes us behind the scenes of the character and set design, and Checkhov’s toilet

It was a great collaboration working with Dan on this film. There was a nice distribution of skills and creative fit. Dan’s early career involved designing sets for stop-frame animation and he has a natural proclivity for building environments. This is something he really enjoys doing and he is also very good at it. I really enjoy drawing characters. When we started work it was almost unsaid that Dan ‘build’ most of the set and I populate it with characters. Although there was also a natural divide between the left and right of the image and where our labours lay. Dan did a great job designing and animating the industrial revolution architecture and it’s here where I put a lot of detail into the characters that populate that area. I was keen on illustrating through character design the transition from the agricultural revolution to the late Victorian era.

I was trying to channel David Lean’s Oliver Twist with a bit of Gustave Doré thrown in. Dan designed an outdoor toilet initially to fill up some space architecturally. I couldn’t resist using the set to create a small sub-narrative. You will notice the boy running away with the toilet paper as the angry lady shakes her fist at him. Perhaps this is Chekhov’s toilet; don’t put a toilet in a picture unless you intend to use it!

Andrew explains the context of Joni Mitchell’s appearance and ‘Bug R Off’

Another enjoyable part of making animations is the fact that you learn a lot from making them. On the right-hand side of the image is a sequence about sustainable farming and moving away from pesticides and chemical fertilisers. Rachel Carson’s book, ‘Silent Spring’ focuses on the chemical pesticide DDT, which was developed to tackle insect-borne diseases during World War II. It was then employed as a commercial pesticide in the USA in the 50s and 60s causing great harm to the environment and the food chain. In researching the chemical, I was alerted to the fact that Joni Mitchell, the folk singer, included a reference to DDT in her song ‘Big Yellow Taxi’. This was something I wasn’t aware of and so I listened to the song again with a fresh pair of ears. I thought this was a great little snippet and decided to put Joni under the tree singing her song.

Andrew explores the how the visuals expanded on Ken’s reference to organic farming

As part of this sequence Ken mentions organic farming. He mentions it in passing and without going into detail. Ken says, “If we get the soil right through cultivation then life will flourish indefinitely.” This is where voiceovers and visuals can work very well together with a little bit of research. I had come across the concept of regenerative agriculture from documentaries like ‘Kiss the Ground’ and wanted to encapsulate the concept in a graphical overlay. In this simple graphic, I have extrapolated the content and laid it out in space. This diagram can be easily read and can pick out what Ken was referring to when he said, “get the soil right”. I made small images of the main areas organic farmers focus on when working with soil and then labelled them accordingly. As a visual thinker, I make work that aims to help audiences understand complex topics and it’s moments like these that I feel it’s our duty to flesh out. I don’t think it’s acceptable to gloss over areas when more context is needed or poorly serve the content with a vague or anodyne image.

There are lots more visual bits and bobs throughout the piece, but these are the ones that easily come to mind. If you want to find out more about the collaborative process on making ‘A Future for us All’ then please watch the interview, we did with Kate and Anthony.

Sharing the ideas of our time through the prism of visual thinking is what drives us forward. If you have an idea or message you want to share with the world, we’d love to hear it. Talk to us today!