Berlitz Global · 2025
From a school in Rhode Island in 1878 to an AI tutor, in 116 seconds.
A 116-second animated timeline of Berlitz, from Maximilian Berlitz’s first school in 1878 to the AI Speaking Tutor, told with archive photographs on the brand’s geometric system, plus two logo idents and a language-and-culture intro in the same motion language.
The challenge
Berlitz is one of the oldest brands in language teaching and almost nobody knows the story: the founder, the assistant who only spoke French, the method born by accident, the travel guides, Berlitz Kids, online courses, and now an AI tutor. Berlitz wanted it told once, well, for social and for the sales deck.
The approach
The film is a timeline drawn in the brand’s geometric system, blue, violet, green and coral shapes on white with a thin connecting line that carries the eye from date to date. Archive photographs and the little professor sit in it as artefacts: 1878 and the first school, 1900 and a hundred schools, the sixties and the travel guides and Total Immersion, 1988 to 1992 and the convoys to Africa, 1982 and Berlitz Kids, then online courses and the Speaking Tutor.
Two logo idents and an eight-second language-and-culture intro use the same shapes and timing, so every film the brand publishes can open the same way.
The work
Films
150 years in two minutes (the first 45 seconds) Language and culture intro, 8 seconds Logo ident, 10 seconds Logo ident, variant B, 7 seconds
What we delivered
- 116-second timeline film, 1920 by 1080
- Script and archive selection
- Two logo idents
- Eight-second language-and-culture intro
- Social cut-downs
Related projects
All work
We apply the same thinking to every engagement.
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