A motion graphics piece for NMBS as part of its 100th anniversary competition and earned a prize as finalist. Challenge was to create a video that represents 100 years of NMBS with a focus on its past, present, or future of train travel.
concept
In this animation I wanted to show 100 years of NMBS/SNCB not as a technical history of trains, but as a continuous human journey. That is why the main character is not a person, but a suitcase. Bags are the quiet witnesses of travel: they carry our everyday life, holidays, migrations and returns. By following one line that constantly unravels from suitcase to train to station and back, I try to visualize how these individual stories are all connected by the same rail network.
process
The video is structured as a simple timeline with four key years in the background: 1926, 1935, 1952 and 2026. Each stop is marked by a different transformation of the line: the birth of NMBS/SNCB, the first electric Brussels–Antwerp trains, the opening of Brussels-Central as a new hub, and a modern M7-inspired train that hints at today and the near future. The end scene gathers suitcases from different eras in one place, underlining the idea of “many lives, one journey”. Visually I use a monoline, continuous drawing style. This keeps the images clear and readable in a vertical, silent format, while the single line reinforces the idea of one unbroken journey through time.