Context—Launched in November 2010 the MTV/55DSL idents constituted the third phase of MTV’s first international rebrand which first rolled out in July 2009 to an audience of 578 million households across 162 territories.

Solution—Phase 4 of our international rebrand saw us collaborate with 55DSL. The result was the 5.5 series of idents – 5 international artists each interpreting one of the 5 senses in their own unique way. Exploring the human senses was a natural extension to the human emotions theme (at the heart of our 2009 rebrand), and was a natural fit with both MTV and 55DSL’s ethos and vision. All artists produced an original artwork, each featuring on a limited run 55DSL T-shirt and also as a basis for 5 x 20” idents. The arists were then teamed up with experienced motion design studios to create these idents which saw each sense being amplified x 1000%, thus culminating in the 5.5th sense.

Result—The T-shirts sold out within a week and the collaboration was extensively blogged about and referenced across umpteen youth, streetwear, urban, and art and design sites.