The Blog of Studio Fuse » Scott

Putting Baby Behind the Fence

Scott — Sat, 31 Aug 2013 01:06:25 +0000

It all started when we came across one of the last catless videos on the internet. It was a video about a technique called “ombro,” a pre-cinema method of animation that involves masking and revealing parts of an image with a “fence” to create the illusion of movement.

As a studio that’s known for its interactive print (at least in our minds), we immediately knew we’d use this technique for a project someday, even if it might be far off down the road.

As it happened, a few months after watching the video, we were gearing up to begin the Dance at The Music Center season brochure. To our delight, The Music Center wanted to try something different from the use of straight production photography—an approach they had used for the last few seasons. Ombro immediately sprang to mind as the perfect “something different.” What better way to express dance than through movement? Fortunately, The Music Center was as excited as we were about the prospect of an animated brochure.

Of course, the solution also had to work for cases where there would be no fence: ads, 3-sheets, postcards, etc. So we determined that we’d use a mix of moving dancers, and static dancers paired with moving type to be prepared for all scenarios.

Initially, we had simply planned to animate the word “moving” itself in a different way for each image. However, as we experimented, we realized the series of unfenced frames were like afterimages, or impressions. That led us to change “moving” to multiple adjectives describing the varied lasting impressions the viewer could be left with by experiencing the companies this season.

With the idea solidified, we worked out each page and built a digital demo to share them with The Music Center (You can still play with it here.) After a bit of back-and-forth involving changes to the color and a couple of new adjectives, the brochure was approved.

The only problem with a piece like this is, after working on it for so long, you begin to lose perspective; by the time it went to print, we weren’t sure if anyone would find it compelling. Thankfully, when it got into people’s hands, our fears were allayed. Indeed, the response was positive, and The Music Center saw an increase in subscriptions over last season. While we surely can’t take all of the credit, we’d like to think this novel delivery of dance captured some minds, and perhaps moved some people to hop over the fence and get closer to the stage. And for those who weren’t moved, well, here’s a cat video. @scottfuse

UPDATE: 9/18/13
We’re pleased to announce the brochure just garnered us a Gold Award in the Creativity 43rd Print & Packaging Awards!

A quick demo of the brochure.

A quick demonstration of the brochure, starring Aless’ hands.

No Surrender, Dorothy!

Scott — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 19:19:24 +0000

It seems that nowadays Halloween is little more than tired social media memes and carnal desperation in costume form, stumbling into each other at a party (sometimes in the same costume). Sure—maybe it’s that I’m no longer a youth and feel bitter that God has forsaken me. But doesn’t it seem more likely that we’ve irreversibly wandered into the web 2.0 dystopia—an era of celebrity anarchy and narcissistic youth? Either way, it’s clear that the world should have quit while it was ahead. Yes, the candy is still good; yes, it still takes the edge off the beer. But one must wonder “What have we done to the kids?” Fortunately, there is somebody out there still thinking about the kids: The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.

Every year the museum puts on a themed Haunted Museum for their members, bringing together science and scares—and for the past several years, we’ve designed the invitations for them. Last year, it was “Fairy Tales and Scary Tales,” for which we created a two-sided book featuring a mix of characters from ogres to dire wolves.

This year, the museum decided to turn the Haunted Museum into a travel destination of sorts: the “Land of Awes” (as in The Wizard of Oz). This destination concept delivered the design direction to us on a platter: we would turn the invitation into a travel brochure. Fleshing the idea out, we designed one side to be a poster inspired by travel posters from the thirties, while the other side became a metaphoric map of the evening’s itinerary. Naturally, both sides included a hybrid of Oz characters and museum specimens, such as a tin Thomas the T. Rex, a cowardly saber-toothed tiger, flying monkeys, and Fruitaden Munchkins. It was a lot of work, but fortunately Grace the intern was here to help us illustrate Thomas and the tiger.

While it is just one invitation to one event in one city, we feel proud that we were able to do our part to keep Halloween from falling completely into the evil clutches of post-adolescent party culture and keep it just a little bit fun for the kids (however doomed they may be). Plus, it was just awes-fully fun to create. @scottfuse

Take a look at the gallery, and let us know what you think. >>

Tags: client illustration invitation Natural History Museum

Extreme Makeover: Website Edition

Scott — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 21:31:03 +0000

Most of you know Studio Fuse as a print design studio, or perhaps, as a link you accidentally clicked. However, we’ve also been known to design websites on occasion.

This past spring, in fact, we were hired to rebrand the newly renamed Association for Women in Architecture + Design (formed in 1948, they recently added the “+ Design” to “AWA” to better reflect the scope of their mission).

Part of the rebrand included giving their website a makeover. Not only did the look need to be updated to reflect the new identity, they also wanted a backend that was easier to maintain, as well as a blog that they could manage themselves. You can see the before and after screengrabs in this post, or check out the site here (note: the pages may load slowly—this is due to their host, not our code! The site ran quite speedily on a test host).

Executing the website was a walk in the park, if that park is Yosemite National Park and you are a double amputee with a bad sense of direction. I won’t bore you with the details like I bored myself with them in previous versions of this post, but I will share a short list of lessons learned along the way:

Software marketing language is, unfortunately, not a programming language. “Easy and powerful integration with WordPress” does sound nice, though, doesn’t it?

Internet Explorer 9 is by far the worst browser at rendering pages correctly, after Internet Explorers 8, 7 and 6.

There are varying levels of ignorance and stupidity in web development. Find your level, and ask questions with the appropriate humility.

Being the third person to work with a site’s undocumented code is difficult, but still better than being the fourth person (Sorry fourth person. I tried).

Challenges aside, AWA+D now has an online presence that’s easy to use and that they’re proud of. Insert rousing cheer here… or use the one we’ve inserted for you below. @scottfuse

Your browser does not support the audio tag.

 The old AWA homepage 

The new AWA+D homepage

LACMA Muse ArtWalk

Scott — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 00:53:13 +0000

Hey lazy legs, aren’t you tired of always sitting around, not looking at art? You are? Good! Fortunately, you can resolve both of your life’s failings this Saturday with LACMA’s annual ArtWalk.

If you can throw on a pair of shoes (perhaps like the ones in the invite we designed), you can take advantage of FREE admission to LACMA, the Craft and Folk Art Museum, and the Architecture + Design Museum, as well as more than twenty galleries along the Miracle Mile. From 12 to 8 pm, there will be dance performances, live music, and interactive art projects—and just regular old art too.

That’s not all. You can also join in on the ForYourArt aMUSEment Hunt. Get a sticker for each of the museums and galleries you visit and redeem them for prizes—from original prints to memberships.

Still want more? Sheesh, I might have to start calling you crazy legs… You can also head back to LACMA for the ArtWalk After Party from 8:30 to 11 pm, featuring the Joshua Light Show and music by Dublab and Silent Disco. @scottfuse

Saturday, June 16

LACMA + Miracle Mile | Info

Saturday, June 16
LACMA + Miracle Mile | Info

ArtWalk
12 – 8 pm
FREE

After Party
8:30 – 11 pm
$15 – $25

Rejexhibition: The First Fridays You Never Saw

Scott — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 18:30:49 +0000

Welcome to the inaugural rejexhibition post. What’s a rejexhibition? Webster’s dictionary defines it as “not found.” Okay, let’s try again: For all of the successful design solutions we deliver, many a design is rejected along the way—and sometimes we can’t forget about them. It’s like your baby that everyone thinks is ugly, but that you think is the most beautiful thing ever. Should you leave it in a dumpster because it’s been rejected? Nay, you should gather it up with your other beautiful babies, tack them to a wall, and let the world rejoice in their unappreciated glory. That’s a rejexhibition.

(Un)fortunately, our recent work on the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County’s First Fridays series yielded a bevy of such unused work. For those unfamiliar, First Fridays combines DJs, live music and drinks with scientific discussion and behind-the-scenes tours. Each season is programmed with a theme in mind. For 2012 “This Time It’s Personal” was coined to expose scientists as more than lab coat wearing nerds, and to involve the audience with the idea that everyone can be a scientist.

Two of the initial approaches involved treating the artwork like indie rock posters, which often use simple but odd imagery to capture the tone and core ideas of the band. Applying this to Dr. Michael Brown and his discussion “How I Killed Pluto and Why it Had it Coming”, we came up with one version in which Dr. Brown is visually explaining how he blew up Pluto with his eye, like the Death Star destroying Alderaan. In another version, an X’d-out Pluto sits in front of comic strip panels in which discussion attendees share their opinions on the death of Pluto. Both good solutions, but…

Ultimately, the third approach was chosen. This direction focused on what the scientists were wearing underneath their lab coats. In our minds, they were hiding witty graphic tees inspired by the topic each of them was to present. This resulted in a series of postcards with t-shirts as key art. Additionally, all of the shirts were actually produced and made available for sale.

That is, all of the shirts that were accepted were made available. Several designs were thought to be too irreverent for the discussions, including the ones for “Is it Good or Bad that the World has So Many Languages?”, “Wicked Bugs—Fearsome and Ferocious Creatures in Your Backyard and Beyond”, and “The New Science of Darwinian Feminism: Evolutionary Insights from Bonobo Social and Sexual Interactions”. In addition, the First Fridays season shirt we designed also fell by the wayside.

Take a look at the gallery, and let us know what you think. >>

One of the accepted designs.

An accepted design.

One of the accepted designs.

In the end, while we were disappointed that some solutions didn’t make it to print, we understand that not all options can be chosen, and that they were not rejected out of spite—rejection is just part of the biz. We’re just glad that we’re finally able to take them out of the waste bin and tack them up for all to see. @scottfuse

It’s Christmas in Paris on Memorial Day in LA

Scott — Wed, 23 May 2012 22:30:32 +0000

As much as I may want to pretend otherwise, I can’t say I’ve ever actually lived like a bohemian—unless of course, you consider residing in the NoHo Arts District and avoiding the other inhabitants while working an office temp job to be bohemian. My apartment’s trash chute was often blocked and I did go without cable for awhile, if that helps. But I digress…

If you, like me, are at a place in life where you would prefer to experience the bohemian lifestyle from a comfortable seat in a temperature-controlled room, you may want to check out the return of LA Opera’s La Bohème to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. It’s a revival of the celebrated 1993 Herbert Ross production.

The intriguing difference this time, is that the two leads, Ailyn Pérez and Stephen Costello, are actually married, and therefore possibly really in love. Though I haven’t seen them perform, I have to wonder if their real-world chemistry might provide a sense of authenticity I’ve often found lacking in other operatic expressions of romance.

For those unfamiliar, La Bohème is the original Rent. Just swap New York for Paris, and AIDS for tuberculosis (yes, there’s more to it than that, but this isn’t one of those articles). More specifically, the story follows six young Parisians in the 1830s, who are financially destitute, but spiritually rich. It’s Christmas time as the young poet, Rodolfo, falls in love with a shy seamstress, Mimi. Providing contrast and context to their central love story is the on-again, off-again love affair of the painter Marcello and the cabaret singer Musetta. Against the backdrop of nineteenth-century Paris, including an unfinished Eiffel tower, the young artists experience passion, poverty, joy, suffering and ultimately (spoiler alert), death.

While I have not seen La Bohème, I’ve been to a few LA Opera productions in the past. They have always delivered gorgeous sets and costumes, and a grandiose sound that you cannot get from film or your corner NoHo theater (sorry, real bohemians).

Tickets are going fast, so don’t wait to get seats. If you’ve never been to an opera, this is meant to be one of the more accessible, so check it out. It’s the last production of LA Opera’s season. @scottfuse

May 23, 26, 31 and June 2
Dorothy Chandler Pavilion

Tickets $20–$270 | More info

Photo by Robert Millard for LA Opera.

The young artists celebrate not living in North Hollywood. From left: Robert Pomakov, Stephen Costello, Museop Kim, Artur Rucinski. Photo by Robert Millard for LA Opera.

Spouses Stephen Costello and Ailyn Pérez as Rodolfo and Mimi. Photo by Robert Millard for LA Opera.

Real-life couple Stephen Costello and Ailyn Pérez fictionally embrace as lovers Rodolfo and Mimi. Photo by Robert Millard for LA Opera.

Melon Land-Fill Lips and Other Diseases

Scott — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 19:55:09 +0000

While researching dolphin melons for a Natural History Museum project, I stumbled across the illustration of a woman with dripping, watermelon lips. Naturally, I put aside paid work and followed the image to its origin. The magic of hyperlinks brought me to the blog Dr. Alan’s Placebology: “Alternative Medicine for Alternative Illnesses for Alternative Bodies Using Alternative Words. By Dr A. A. Alan.”

There I found pun-filled satire of UK politics and media—in this case, aimed squarely at conservative journalist Melanie Phillips (Melon Land-Fill Lips):

“The lips take on the appearance of a melon. Usually this is watermelon but can be honeydew. It is thought that this is the result of the alternative body trying to protect itself from others reacting to the controversial opinions it is spouting with violence. After all, it is difficult to take someone seriously if they [have] melons for lips; no matter how much garbage they are producing.”

Don’t let the puns fool you, though; the writing and satire can be pretty sharp, even for those who may be unfamiliar with its British targets. In the article with my favorite illustration, Chapter 8: Parasite, out of mind: A Dreadful Attack of the Fainting McKeiths, Dr. Alan takes a shot at nutritionist and TV personality, Gillian McKeith:

“The fainting mckeith in its adult form spends most of its time hanging around in the environment looking at faeces. Once it has looked at enough faeces it transfers what it has learned about those faeces into a nest made out of toilet paper in the shape of a book. This is technically known as the mckeith pile of harassed defaecation (PhD). The purpose of the PhD is to interest another fainting mckeith with which to half-heartedly reproduce.”

To give it some context: According to a quick Google, Ms. McKeith’s PhD is from a “non-accredited correspondence course college” and she faked fainting on “I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here.”

Okay, so it’s probably not relevant to those outside the UK (or judging by the year-long hiatus of the blog, those inside the UK), but the articles are a fun read and the illustrations have made it into my inspiration folder. @scottfuse

Studio Fuse Innovates with Web-Log

Scott — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 00:55:16 +0000

While we have waited patiently—fingers crossed, heads in sand—it seems that blogs and social media in general are not going away any time soon. Though we’re certain that these things will have the relevance of telegrams some day—barreling as we are toward a Borg-like hive mind—it seems that that day is still a couple of years off. The hive mind is not happening in this election cycle, anyway. So we find ourselves, purveyors of communication solutions, submitting to the tide and boldly stepping into the present. Though a bit late to the game, we’d like to think the wait was worth it—for those of you who’ve been waiting…mom, or whoever.

Take a Right at the End of the Page

If you haven’t yet noticed, the layout is a bit different than most blogs; the site scrolls horizontally. Not only that, it scrolls incrementally. You can use your mouse or keyboard—or if on a touch device, your finger—to navigate left and right, one page at a time. Moreover, the site is responsive to screen size, adjusting the layout accordingly, all the way down to mobile screens. Magical? Yes. Magic? No.

Saving Trees, Losing Hair

We’d love to take credit for the code that makes it all work, but in actuality, neither our blog nor our recently rebooted main site would be anything without the open-source Treesaver platform. As designers who spend the majority of our time designing for print—including publications such as FORM—we were immediately taken with the promise Treesaver offered. In short, it seemed to be the perfect bridge between print and web. Indeed, the end result as created by Scott Kellum and the folks at Nomad is impressive, but getting there isn’t as easy as it looks. Bags were added to eyes, hairs were torn from heads in our implementing Treesaver. True, it was partially our personal learning curve. But also true, is that Treesaver is currently only on version 0.93-beta—so there is a lot in flux, and a lot yet to be resolved (there is no way to guarantee images will stay in the order you place them, for example). That said, it is a remarkable framework even its current form.

A Gimmick is Something a Marketer Does for Money

It would seem that some corners of the designer blogosphere feel that side-scrolling, multi-column publications are a gimmick—that they’re simply an appeal to the familiarity of print conventions. Though some horizontal sites are indeed a tedious novelty, we feel that Treesaver creates an effective digital analogue to page-turning—or perhaps, the unfolding of an accordion-style pamphlet. Unlike vertical scrolling, with the disorientation that occurs as one tries to follow the last line of text to the top of the screen, Treesaver gives the eye a consistent starting point, helping the reader move through the article. Further, multiple columns also improve the reading experience, as it is easier on the eyes to follow text in small chunks, as opposed to the wide lines of a typical single-column page. Indeed, one or two columns is not a matter of taste. We hope you’ll agree and will join us again on our horizontal, multi-column journey, even as we are still forging its path. In future posts, we’ll be covering design and the arts, as well as the goings-on of our own studio. Until then, feel free to comment or tweet @scottfuse. —Scott