22 Years of Perception: 22 Monumental Moments of 2023

We kicked off the year with a huge announcement – we revamped and elevated our website. Our new site offers a more immersive and interactive experience with our work, mission and creative process. Throughout the year, we have also published over 20 brand new film and technology case studies across our website!

Over in Disneyland in Anaheim, California, a new nighttime spectacular was announced, World of Color – ONE. This show includes the many aspects of The Walt Disney Company, including Marvel Studios. For this Marvel Studios portion of the show, the visuals were directly inspired by the end title sequences Perception created for Black Panther and Hawkeye!

Our team collaborated with Marvel Studios on so many critical pieces of technology in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, from early concepts to final animations. As a result, we were proud to publish our Black Panther: Wakanda Forever Technology Design case study, our largest and richest case study ever!

Here at Perception, we’re always looking for new ways to expand and evolve. This year, that came in the form of establishing some brand new social pages on TikTok, Threads and Behance! From comedic shorts to project deep dives, these new pages offer a brand new look at our team.

Perception Co-Founders, Danny Gonzalez and Jeremy Lasky, were keynote speakers at AIGA Las Vegas. They gave a behind the scenes look at Perception and our vast portfolio of work. A few months later, our Chief Creative Director, Doug Appleton, also joined AIGA Las Vegas as a keynote speaker, taking a deep dive into our film and technology work!

We’re huge hockey fans here at Perception, especially of the New Jersey Devils. Earlier this year, the New Jersey Devils put their own spin on the opening title sequence we designed for Marvel Studio’ What If…? to promote their Marvel Superhero Night. Now that’s the Multiverse at play!

Our Co-Founder, Jeremy Lasky, introduced students and faculty to the making of Black Panther and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever in a detailed presentation for MIT. This keynote covered Perception’s contributions to the world of Wakanda through discussing how we conceptualize this advanced technology to the intricate methods of designing cinematic title sequences.

Maxon’s suite of tools are always our go-to on our projects. This year, we were honored to have our work for Lightyear, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Maxon One, and Moon Knight highlighted in all of Maxon’s demo reels, including the Cinema 4D, Redshift, Red Giant, ZBrush and Maxon One Demo Reels.

In the past, our team has collaborated with the Russo Brothers to bring narrative sequences to life in their films, such as Captain America: The Winter Soldier and The Gray Man. This year, we partnered with them once again to design an important storytelling sequence for Citadel on Prime Video, featuring customized documents, historic retellings and futuristic UI.

Our Creative Director, Greg Herman, sat down with Motionographer to reflect on his start in the motion graphics industry, leading up to his time today with Perception. Greg used to be a writer for Motionographer, so this piece truly brought his time in the industry full circle!

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 was one of the biggest films this year and we collaborated with Marvel Studios on it! From designing some of our most quirky technology to crafting critical worldbuilding elements, we’re excited to have helped wrap up this groundbreaking trilogy.

This year, the GMC HUMMER EV made strides and received Ward’s Top 10 UX Award, which encompasses all aspects of user experience within the vehicle. We were honored to help elevate the user experience of the GMC HUMMER EV to new heights with our cinematic animations, interfaces and interactions.

Our work from Spider-Man: Homecoming and Spider-Man: Far From Home were featured once again in the new Beyond Amazing Spider-Man Exhibit in Kansas City. Originally located in San Diego, this exhibit honors some of the most important elements of the Spider-Man comics and films, including our title sequences.

Our Creative Director, Greg Herman, and Art Director, Christian Haberkern, sat down with Adobe and Frame.io to discuss the details of our creative process, specifically with title sequences. From live filming to CGI, this feature uncovers all of the insider secrets you’re craving to know about the team!

Our Chief Creative Director, Doug Appleton, headed over to Los Angeles as a speaker at Siggraph! Partnering with Conductor Technologies and CoreWeave, Doug showcased the making of our Lightyear title sequence, including innovative insights and animation tips. NVIDIA CEO, Jensen Huang, also came by to watch Doug’s keynote!

One of our favorite things to watch are the Director Commentaries of films on Disney+. Director Ryan Coogler, Co-Writer Joe Robert Cole and Director of Photography Autumn Durald Arkapaw offered insightful commentary on our title sequence for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, while Director Peyton Reed and Screenwriter Jeff Loveness dissected the imagery and effects of our title sequence for Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania in each films’ respective commentaries! Both of these Director Commentary editions of these films can be streamed now on Disney+.

As the year began to wrap up, it was time to celebrate all of the amazing films and technology that we have been working on. We released 3 brand new reels, our Film Reel, Technology Reel, and Hybrid Reel. Engaging the 5 senses, these reels offer insights into the worlds that Perception has been building and where we’re headed next.

With the Multiverse becoming so prevalent, it was time to enter a Multiverse of our own! Our Co-Founder, Danny Gonzalez, sat down with Comedian and YouTuber, Danny Gonzalez, for a new episode of the Perception Podcast. From crafting visual effects to making music, we saw what parallels these two Danny’s shared in the Multiverse in this episode.

Speaking of the Multiverse, we collaborated with Marvel Studios on Loki Season 2! We designed the end title sequence for this series, expanding on our title sequence we created for Loki Season 1. We also designed locators, the main title, and the customized Marvel Studios logo for this show.

This year, we have been connecting with colleges locally and across the country to help provide insights and advice for university students. We have partnered with ArtCenter College of Design, Ramapo College of New Jersey, Borough of Manhattan Community College, Saint John’s University and more to chat with students and lecture about the film, technology, automotive and motion graphics industries.

Get ready to swing into action! We made our video game title sequence debut this year. We designed the cinematic end title sequence for Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, a sequence that totals over 800 names and 5 minutes in length! Stay tuned for more on that coming soon!

We close out our list with a film that premiered less than a week ago. We collaborated with Marvel Studios on The Marvels, designing the colorfully cosmic end title sequence for this film. We flexed our illustrative design skills within this sequence, wrapping up our 22nd anniversary with a title sequence that quickly became one of our favorites.