CASE STUDYRACE TO THE TOP
PROJECT: RACE TO THE TOP - Title Sequence
CLIENT: After Party Studios
ROLE: Creative Direction • Design • Animation
01 / OVERVIEW
RACE TO THE TOP: The Dagenham & Redbridge Story is a documentary following KSI as he takes on the challenge of turning around a lower-league football club and taking it all the way to the top.
I was brought on by After Party Studio to create the animated title sequence for the documentary.
02 / THE BRIEF
After seeing my Lincoln Lawyer title sequence on TikTok, Ben from After Party Studios got in touch. He shared the music, footage from the documentary, and a few ideas to get things started. One of them was using a map of Dagenham around the stadium, as well as playing with the connection between KSI's early days playing FIFA and now owning a real football club.
The brief was pretty open, so I had room to explore the direction and figure out how to bring all these elements together.
03 / THE CHALLENGE
The challenge was to create a fun, animated opening sequence that told the story of the documentary through analog media and collage, all in just 30 seconds.
I had only 10 days to make it happen. The team sent over thousands of photos and videos of KSI and the players, which gave me plenty of material to work with, but also meant going through a huge amount of content to find the right images and moments for the sequence.
On top of that, I wanted to give the animation a handmade, analog feel without spending too much time creating every element from scratch. I had to find a way to make the whole thing work within a pretty tight timeline.
04 / THE PROCESS
GETTING THE STORY
First, I watched the first episode to get a better idea of the story and what was going on. Then I started writing down how I imagined the sequence, basically breaking it into little scenes and keywords.
I don't really do storyboards because I'm terrible at drawing what's in my head. I usually just close my eyes, imagine the whole thing playing out, and write down whatever I see. My notes probably look like complete nonsense to anyone else, but somehow they make perfect sense to me…
I have absolutely no idea what half of this means now, but it made perfect sense back then. Maybe I should finally learn how to storyboard
I knew I wanted to start with KSI playing FIFA, so I went down a bit of a rabbit hole watching his old YouTube videos and screenshotting thumbnails and different moments I could use.
That gave me the starting point for the first few scenes. I started building collages around those images, figuring out how to bring his YouTube world into the sequence.
MAKING IT FEEL ANALOG
I wanted the whole thing to have an analog, handmade feel, but with only 10 days to make it, I couldn't spend ages creating every little element by hand.
So I decided to build a little library of textures that I could reuse throughout the sequence. I drew and scanned a bunch of scribbles, painted blobs, crumpled paper, and scanned that too. Basically, anything that could add a bit of texture and make the collages feel less digital.
COLOR
I wanted to use the club's colors, but I wasn't really loving how they looked together in this setting, so I spent a lot of time playing around with different hues and tints until I found a combination I liked.
I wanted to keep a connection to the club, but also give the sequence its own visual identity.
THE COLLAGES
Once I had the color palette figured out, I started going through all the photos and looking for images that could work for each scene. I mostly focused on still images because they were quicker to work with than video, especially with such a tight deadline.
I built each scene as a collage in Photoshop, cutting out different elements and experimenting with how they could fit together. I was also thinking about how I would animate each composition later, so it wasn't just about making the images look good as stills.
ANIMATION
I did all the collage work in Photoshop first because that's where I have the most freedom to experiment with textures, cut things out, move things around, and build the compositions.
Once I was happy with a scene, I'd prepare the file for animation, organizing everything into layers and merging elements that needed to move together before bringing it into After Effects.
The animation itself was pretty straightforward. I mostly had the different elements appearing one by one, with some subtle camera movements to give the collages a bit of depth. I also played around with how the scenes transitioned into each other, which led to a few of my favorite moments in the sequence.
TYPOGRAPHY AND CREDITS
For the credits, I used a typeface I'd recently modified for another project but hadn't had a chance to use yet. Normally, I'd probably spend days looking for the right typeface, but with only 10 days to make the whole sequence, I had to make decisions quickly.
I also designed the logo for the series, which comes in at the end of the sequence.
05 / THE RESULT
The first few days were honestly a bit of a crisis. I couldn't figure out how I wanted the sequence to look, and everything I was making felt terrible. But once I got all the bad ideas out of my system and found a direction that worked, everything just clicked. I got into a flow and couldn't stop. I was working 12+ hour days, but I absolutely loved making it.
The team at After Party Studio made the whole experience even better. They gave me so much creative freedom and trusted my judgment from the start. When I sent over the first draft, the only feedback was a small pacing adjustment in the KSI scene, which I actually thought was a really good call. Sometimes, when you've been working on something for so long, you become a little blind to it and lose perspective on the pacing. We made the adjustment, and that was pretty much it. No design changes, no endless rounds of revisions… they just trusted me to take the lead and do my thing. Honestly, dream clients.
I'm so proud of how it turned out, especially the YouTube feed and stadium transitions. And I'm pretty proud of having pulled the whole thing together in just 10 days.
06 / IMPACT
I posted a video showing how I made the sequence, and it ended up getting over 1.5 million views on Instagram. I've also received so many nice comments from people who enjoyed seeing how everything came together, which was really rewarding.
The final sequence was also published on KSI's YouTube channel, and the team at After Party Studio were incredibly happy with the result. They told me how much they loved it several times, which was so nice to hear… my imposter syndrome really needed that.
This project also reminded me how much I can do when there's trust on both sides. I love getting a good brief, understanding what the client is looking for, and then having the freedom to go away, experiment, try things, make mistakes, and figure out the direction myself before coming back with something to share. Then comes feedback, which is a necessary part of the process… having another pair of eyes on the work is crucial and I always appreciate it. But I realized I do my best work when I'm given the space to explore and create first, and then we can work together to refine things.
Dream project. Dream clients!
Also, no endless meetings or unnecessary calls, mostly email :)