Between 1941 and 1945, over 10 billion letters were posted and delivered in the USSR. To mark Victory Day celebrating the defeat of Nazi Germany, we researched a unique collection of 7,000 war-time letters stored for decades in family archives. From hundreds of emotional quotes, we created an “endless” flow of digital letters on a 3D canvas where stories of real people are given new life through interactive digital experiences.

“Endless Letter” is a unique graphic series featuring hundreds of excerpts from original WW2 front-line letters with illustrations created by young design students. The triangular design resembles a historical fact - due to lack of envelopes and paper, soldiers folded pages of text into triangles; it was also easier to keep unsent letters uncrumpled in uniform pockets during battles. Letters from military schools, from the front line, from abandoned homes, some filled with hope, some carrying cherished last words.

Between 1941 and 1945, over 10 billion letters were posted and delivered in the USSR. To mark Victory Day celebrating the defeat of Nazi Germany, we researched a unique collection of 7,000 war-time letters stored for decades in family archives. From hundreds of emotional quotes, we created an “endless” flow of digital letters on a 3D canvas where stories of real people are given new life through interactive digital experiences.

“Endless Letter” is a unique graphic series featuring hundreds of excerpts from original WW2 front-line letters with illustrations created by young design students. Emotional quotes from frontline missives are combined in a 3D space creating an endless flow of letters. Letters from military schools, from the front line, from factories, hospitals, and abandoned homes, some filled with hope, some carrying cherished last words.

"Endless Letter" adapts historical WW2 family letters to an illustrative web narrative, giving these emotional artifacts a new life in digital space. Through this website, we wanted young people to ‘experience’ the sacrifices and struggles of millions to bring peace to their homeland by communicating the story in a simple yet striking audio-visual format. Curated short lines with illustrations transfer the emotional essence of those tragic times into the present.

This project is about the fate of an ordinary person. A soldier. A wife. A mother. A child. A father. It is a story of families who had to face such a horrid burden - a story about millions of people who lived and died during the Second World War. One can only truly understand the full scale through emotional experience: through personal stories. And there is nothing more personal than letters.

From thousands of such letters, we carefully selected piercing quotes to create an engaging web experience featuring a specially designed typeface. Every written symbol used in quotes is a precise copy of handwriting inscribed by victorious WW2 veterans on the Reichstag walls in 1945.

The letters are displayed alongside a fixed range of objects: text, imagery, and a special particle system to create the atmosphere. The website features a range of effects that will appear depending on the context of an opened letter: raindrops, thunderstorms, fireflies, snowflakes, machine-gun bursts, sparks of flames. Human silhouettes that appear on screen after hovering on a letter as if from a mist or a cloud of smoke, are images of real people from that time cut out from archive photos.

One of the biggest challenges was to create a realistic, almost photographic, motion of triangles (floating in a 3D space, shadows and angle changes upon hover, digital unfolding on-screen). We implemented a number of special algorithms to make the movement look realistic. For example, mathematical turbulence algorithms were used in modeling snowflakes and flames. Lighting effects enabled us to make the scenes more natural. Among them are flashes of lightning in the rain, the orange backlight of the flames, and the spotlight effects on the bullets that appear from below.

We partnered with Moscow’s RANEPA Design School to create artistic illustrations to accompany each quote. The 4-hour original soundtrack adds to the atmosphere. Together with the music and illustrations the letter phrases create a touching emotional effect. One can vividly imagine how the letter writers missed their homes, worried for their mothers and fathers, desired to live, and went to their death.

The innovative approach paid off with the website being recognized by the world's most respectful communities of web developers. It was praised with "Website of the Day" honors by The FWA and The CCS Design platforms, also snatching top accolades from the Awwwards community (snatching Website of the Day, Developer Award and Mobile Excellence honors). The Endless Letter website became a final element of more-than-a-year-long digital project #VictoryPages which attracted almost 40 million impressions, 300,000 engagements and interactions, and over 4 million video views and page loads.