«Roots and Shoots» — a social project created by students at HSE Art and Design School. In August 2026, the team organized its own «Roots and Shoots» festival at the X5 venue in Gorky Park. The main goal of the event was to draw the attention of the older generation to the project and to create a space for interaction between young people and grandmothers through shared activities. The festival brought together different generations, inviting them to discover common interests and experiences to exchange.
A project under which a festival was held
As part of the festival preparation, we were tasked with developing motion graphics that would complement the event’s visual design and make it more dynamic. The work involved creating animated inserts for showing cartoons and generative graphics for the music rave that concluded the festival.
BACKGROUNDS
As part of the «Peaks and Roots» festival, Lida and I worked on animated inserts for the film screenings. Our task was not simply to supplement the program with visuals, but to imbue them with dynamism while preserving the project’s signature style.
Following the technical specification from the «Koreshkov» team, we adapted the project’s brand graphics for an animation format. The primary focus was maintaining visual integrity: the animation needed to organically extend the existing identity without overloading the screen or distracting from the core action.
Audio-Reactive Graphics
The second focus was generative graphics for the rave that concluded the festival. For this part of the event, it was necessary to create visual support that would harmonize with the «Koreshkov» brand style while remaining sufficiently expressive for a musical event.
To accomplish this, Masha used TouchDesigner. She developed generative graphics based on the festival’s signature colors and configured them to react to specific musical beats and audio layers. Various elements of the visual composition—color spots, shapes, and their movement—responded to the music. As a result, the imagery constantly shifted depending on the musical material, creating a rich and dynamic visual environment.
During the design process, Masha aimed to strike a balance between expressiveness and adherence to the brand identity: the graphics needed to be dynamic enough to support the rave energy, yet not become overly bright or visually overwhelming.
Ultimately, we successfully met the objectives: we preserved the «Koreshkov» brand identity, injected dynamism into the visual design, and helped make the festival more vibrant and expressive. For us, this project was important not only professionally but also personally. We wanted to support our friends who needed help with the event’s visual design, so we jumped in and contributed without adding any extra financial burden to the organizing team.
The festival received coverage in state media and news reports, and the graphics we created became part of the event held in Gorky Park—one of the country’s largest parks. For us, this was an opportunity to apply our skills to a real social project, support an initiative close to our hearts, and help create a space that unites different generations.
