1984, but in 2024: Alphabetical on its atmospheric campaign for Audible’s all-star cast audiobook

For anyone who’s read and enjoyed George Orwell’s 1984 – a dystopian, seminal piece of work by the English writer – Audible’s audio-drama interpretation of the iconic tale promises to be both a literary and visual treat. A literary treat because Orwell’s story, which touches upon themes of totalitarianism, privacy and surveillance, feels just as relevant today as when it was first published, offering fresh food for thought. And a visual treat thanks to the immersive world crafted by London-based design agency Alphabetical for the release of the audiobook.

Starring a stellar cast including Andrew Garfield, Cynthia Erivo, Andrew Scott and Tom Hardy, the story follows the protagonist Winston Smith and his increasing reservations against the ruling Party in London and its leader, Big Brother. What follows is a cautionary tale about a society where personal freedom is non-existent. The story, which has lost none of its potency since it was first published in 1949, has been told and retold over the years, so both for Audible and Alphabetical, the audiobook and its branding had to “venture in a new direction,” says Creative Director Bob Young.

“We knew the audio-drama was ambitiously cinematic in scale, but why was this version different from the others? Why is it relevant now, and why should people listen? This is where we started, and we quickly began to circle the core themes of information, surveillance, and identity, as well as the inescapable connection the characters have to the telescreens,” Young tells us. The telescreens he talks about are a two-way television mentioned in the book that functioned as a surveillance tool for the Party. “This holds up a clear mirror to our current screen-dependent and information-hungry society. We knew that centring our concept around these themes could make the audience think further about why 1984 is more relevant than ever,” adds Young.

To underscore this concept, the team at Alphabetical collaborated with US-based analogue tech artist Josh Ellingson for the making of the entire campaign, which included everything from the cover art, a cinematic trailer to OOH advertising. The cover art builds on the idea of ’80s screens with Winston’s image trapped within a telescreen, “while his identity is slowly being broken down,” explains Young. “We captured the cover art imagery while shooting the film for the promo trailer – created in collaboration with Territory Studio and director James Medcraft – so that everything was produced in the same way. We shot our Winston in a live feed to a CRT monitor and then recorded that monitor under Josh’s distortion, which created the final image (and footage).” To tap into the digital format of an audiobook, Alphabetical also created a ‘live’ version of the cover art, with crackling distortions. The motion language helped further flesh out the key themes of the story. Ideas of surveillance and privacy “manifested as wartime information streams that are constantly manipulated and changed in overt ways, analogue TV scan lines, signals and glitches that are breaking through and interrupting modern-day media,” he shares.

The typography was used as an additional vehicle for storytelling. “We knew we wanted the typography to have an information feed feel, where it was constantly updating and changing with conflicting messages from The Ministry of Truth,” explains Young. “For that to work, we needed to find a typeface that had some association with wartime news information – so compressed, monospaced and very hard working.” Numerous type tests led them to System85 Mono which had all the right qualities and also felt “incredibly modern.” For the ‘1984’ wordmark, they leaned on The Future by Klim Type Foundry but modified it with scan-line distortions. To stay close to the concept, the team manipulated and filmed the typography on real 1980s monitors.

With all the elements in place, the OOH advertisements pushed the campaign out into the world, where again, screens did the talking. Almost as if the world of 1984 had collided with 2024, screens across the world – from Tottenham Court Road to Times Square – flashed messages from the book’s Ministries, but all under Big Brother’s sinister, watchful eye.