As part of the interactive design course, we had been tasked with designing a greeting card on behalf of the University of Ljubljana for the year 2023.

The animation concept of the ‘Greeting Card UL 2023’ is a reinterpretation of the video game Super Mario Bros. The main character Mario is replaced by an eager student who just like Mario has to overcome different obstacles, avoid ‘monsters’, and collect elements that replenish his lives.

The re-envisioned space of the game is deliberately contradictory to the famed original. Instead of over-saturation with elements, colors, and general happenings, the new world consists only of simple abstract round shapes. Depth is created by using gentle gradients in color. The use of a harmonious color palette (pink, blue, and purple) evokes in the player a sense of a gentle, friendly, warm, stimulating world, which he can navigate calmly and confidently, despite obstacles and monsters.

The project was chosen as one of the best submissions and made it to the final selection. The winner, whose animation will be used by the University of Ljubljana for the official greeting card during the New Year holidays, has not yet been announced.