How we built
RAFAEL
DANTE
Senior visual artist at Active
Theory, Dante is responsible for
interactive and visual design,
illustrations and 3D graphics.
Instagram: @rafaeldanteIf you think you’re the sort
of person that ‘doesn’t like
cartoons’, then you haven’t seen Rick
and Morty. The Adult Swim series is a
brilliantly funny, touchingly human
family sitcom, which just happens
to be animated and centred around
a geriatric mad scientist going on
interdimensional adventures with his
grandson. The highest rated comedy on
TV in 2017 for 18- to 34-year-olds, it’s
run three seasons to date, with a fourth
newly released.
With so much creative energy packed
into each episode, its promotional
website (www.rickandmorty.com) needed
to fizzle and crackle with equal amounts
of sparkle. So Adult Swim turned to
Active Theory, the award-winning digital
production studio with offices in Los
Angeles and Amsterdam, to create it.
We spoke to interactive director Michael
Anthony and senior visual artist Rafael
Dante to discover exactly how they went
about it.
What was the initial brief and how did
you go about developing it?
RD: The site was created as a content hub
to collect Rick and Morty content from
all over the internet, including show
streams, purchasable merchandise, fan
art and social media posts. The challenge
for us was taking a fairly standard site
structure and infusing it with the flair
and tone of Rick and Morty in a way that
fans would love.
Visiting this site is very much like
watching the show itself. How did you
nail the tone so well? Was there a lot of
trial and error?
RD: For projects like this, where you have
fans instead of regular consumers, it’s
important to dive deeply into it. So we
have watched (again) pretty much every
episode of the show so we could be in
that mood. There weren’t many errors;
in fact, since the show is pretty crazy, it
opened many possibilities.What were the biggest design choices
you had to make when it came to assets?
RD: We had a huge asset pack, including
all the original artwork from the show.
These assets included backgrounds,
characters, props and just about
everything we’d need in order to push
the design towards a more immersive,
exploratory experience.You took quite an original approach
to navigation. Can you explain how it
works and the thinking behind it?
RD: Originally, the site consisted of five
core sections: videos, merchandise,
games, news and fan art. Rather than
keep it at five discrete sections, we
wanted to make it feel more like you
were exploring the universe of the show.
Inspired by time and interdimensional
travel, we created some interstitials
between the pages, so the user feels that
they’re passing through other worlds.What technologies did you use to build
the site and what were the biggest
technical challenges?
MA: The core underlying technology
is WebGL, which renders the rich 3DMICHAEL
ANTHONY
Co-founder and interactive
director at Active Theory,
Anthony is responsible for 3D
engines and graphics rendering.
t: @michaeltheoryTIMELINE
Key dates in the
Rick and Morty siteJANUARY 2019
Adult Swim briefs Active Theory and
delivers drive of Rick and Morty art. The
brief is building a hub in order to collect
Rick and Morty content from all over
the internet.
FEBRUARY 2019
Inspired by time and dimension travel,
Active Theory starts shaping the
experience, developing UX and
designing all the environments to be
used on the website.
MARCH 2019
Active Theory develops site structure
and creates assets and layers for the
website. The site requires hundreds of
layers, so optimising the rendering is
the biggest challenge.
APRIL 2019
Once the core of the site is built, Active
Theory is able to focus on the most
exciting part – interactivity and the
Easter eggs.
MAY 2019
Active Theory and Adult Swim iterate on
the site. Once it is completed, there is
still a big challenge remaining: to make
the 3D website accessible.
AUGUST 2019
Active Theory launches the website
publicly. Both fans of the show and fans
of web design are thrilled and the new
Rick and Morty website gets a lot of
attention on social networks, as well as
winning several awards.