azulejo six

the one club for creativity · type design · 2026

problem

every number of the young ones countdown to the 2027 awards goes to a different hand. one asset, 1080 × 1350, and a digit that has to stay readable as a digit next to all the others in the feed. the usual answer is a number that morphs — interchangeable, and from nowhere in particular.

idea

on a road trip across the iberian peninsula i filled almost 150 pages of a hand-bound grid sketchbook with sixes, drawn after azulejo tilework. so the animation does not show the number, it shows where it comes from: first the surface, then the joint grid, then the ornament lattice, then the sign — the order in which an azulejo panel is actually read.

solution

a field of 28 × 34 tiles in blue 80 and white, with no soft transition anywhere: a tile is blue or white, there is no 40 % blue. the lines are laid tile by tile, the 6 peels out of the lattice counter-clockwise, and a surf runs left to right through its belly. the ornament frame is hand-drawn — one quarter of it, mirrored on both centre axes — and changes in time with the wave. four seconds, seamless loop, 1080 × 1350.

credits

assignment
number 6 · young ones countdown to yo 2027
role
concept, drawing, design, animation
azulejo six – image 1azulejo six – image 2azulejo six – image 3azulejo six – image 4azulejo six – image 5

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