'100 Years of Athletic World Records'

This animation was part of a project that I did during my time at Salford University. It is an animated infographic charting the progression of world records in athletics. The year 2012 marked one hundred years since the official records began, and it was also the year of the London Olympics, so I was intrigued as to how we have improved over time.

Records are meant to be broken; and there are always new and exciting athletes stepping into the spotlight, but I was very surprised by the research that I had done for the project. In all of the events there has been a constant improvement over the last century, and it really makes you wonder just how much further we can push the limits of our natural abilities.

The pictograms that represent each event at the Olympics have become an iconic part of the design and image of the games, introduced at the 1964 Olympics in Japan. I decided to use the idea of these illustrations as a basis for the animation, to not only keep it simple but also familiar.