RENÉ
Design proposal for Lyric Video of the song “René” by Residente.
The artist exposes himself singing the lyrics he wrote after the night he wanted to jump from the balcony of the hotel he was staying before performing.
In the song, René reconnects with himself by remembering his childhood as a little boy from a big family in Old San Juan, people he lost in his life like his best friend Christopher who was murdered by the police, his beginnings as a singer, his college days in art school, and more.
This was not the first time that Residente attempts to know more about himself and express himself through art, in 2017 he released a self documentary where he mapped his DNA and traveled through Siberia, the Caucasus, China, and West Africa, to reconnect with his roots.
For my concept development, I started by freewriting my ideas, then began an analog exploration with watercolors while I heard the song over and over as well as looked for pictures I took in old san Juan some months ago. I composed my pictures and analog assets and explored different typefaces but I felt that I was missing to include something to feel more of Rene’s personality in my piece, as in the lyrics he talks about his memories I grabbed some of his childhood pictures and included them in my composites as well. For my color palette, I choose to use desaturated Hues in most of the assets and Red for the type and some details, as I also got inspiration from his documentary and I wanted to make reference to Rene’s urge to reconnect with his ancestors after getting his DNA test.
