London animation director and designer Jesse Collett brings a soft and whimsical feel to the latest nugget of wisdom from School of Life founder Alain de Botton, an insightful and surprising look at the factors contributing to your own sense of self-esteem.

Jesse Collett “As Alain just sent me the script and gave me free rein over the animation, I started off by storyboarding the whole thing and gradually developing the design in the process.

“I kept it quite simple and gave myself some rules to stick to, I enjoyed figuring out how to get the characters into different poses whilst keeping them as square and blocky as possible.

“Most of the movement is quite snappy and I made sure it was timed to punctuate Alain’s sentences rather than distract from what he’s saying. It was animated mostly in Photoshop, and composited in After Effects.”

Script, VO: Alain de Botton
Design, animation, sound: Jesse Collett