Design-O-Matic [NYC] : Blog & Archived Projects

JD Graffam’s book “CSS For Print Designers” now at Amazon

admin — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 15:47:37 +0000

Friend of Design-O-Matic and development whiz JD Graffam’s CSS how-to book is now available through Amazon. Highly recommended for those of you looking to get a handle on front-end coding, particularly if you’re coming from a traditional media background.

Here’s a little more info:

If you’re a print designer, you know the day is coming when you’ll be asked to design a Web site. No matter whether you haven’t learned HTML and CSS yet because of a lack of time or technophobia, this book will get you started coding Web sites and making them look the way you want. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at how painless it is and how much you already know. And this book covers HTML5 and CSS3, so you’ll be working with the latest Web standards.

Proud to have been a part of the 2011 Tony Awards

admin — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 23:25:22 +0000

The 2011 Tonys was an amazing show to work on, and we’re very proud of how it turned out! We were responsible for all the performance graphics which were displayed on massive LED panels during each song from the nominees.

We started the process by shooting thousands of photos and many gigs of video inside the theaters, in order to capture lighting changes and set elements. The photos were then carefully mined for textures and scenic pieces that we needed. Then the final video-based “sets” were painstaking constructed from this bank of images.

Lots of hard work & long hours were put into separating & layering the video content so that we could do things like dynamically shift color during the performances. Pretty cool stuff!

To see what we mean, here are some videos that other folks (not us!) have uploaded to YouTube :

Tony Awards 2011 motion graphics

admin — Thu, 05 May 2011 13:55:27 +0000

We’re excited to be working with Seth Easter Design and Hasbas Entertainment on “show look” motion graphics for the 2011 Tony Awards. This is shaping up to be a very interesting May….

UPDATE: New clients & recent projects

admin — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 20:39:30 +0000

For the third year in a row, we’ll be working with the Robin Hood Foundation at their annual Javitz Center Gala. As usual, we’ll be building and performing live interactive Motion Graphics for the Donations & Auctions portion of the event.

This year promises to be as fun and worthwhile as ever, with Brian Williams hosting the evening that wraps up with a performance by Lady Gaga. Last year the evening provided a whopping $86 MILLION for fighting poverty in New York.

Stay tuned for more…

We also recently wrapped up some HTML5/CSS3 design consulting with Fancy Pants Interactive for their snappy new site, which should be live very soon. They’re an amazingly capable development team that has powerful technical know-how with an unheard-of creative sensibility– if you need your creative concepts translated into superb interactive, you should get in touch.

In other news, we’ve been working on Interactive and Online Advertising for some pharmaceutical and financial clients, new videos for the World Bank, logos for the set/environment guys at Seth Easter Design, helping out with Malevolent Creation‘s new music video, and working with Uffindell Group on some digital for Ameriprise….among other things!

Been a busy start to the year. More news soon…

Recent Project: Letterpress business cards

admin — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 20:10:30 +0000

We finally got some photos of the beautiful hand-made letterpress cards we designed for Kelly Guenther Studio. Most of us seem to have been won over by the ease & variety of options available through digital printing, but pieces like this certainly make the case for a return to the old school.

We’re certainly jealous of them on this end…

We love us some Waterbobble!

admin — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 14:54:08 +0000

We’re madly in love with the Bobble these days, and not just because they’re a new client of ours. It’s a beautiful, simple, smart & environmentally-conscious line of products (with more coming!), and it turns out they’re also incredibly nice guys with an interesting back story.

If you don’t know, Bobble is a Karim Rashid-designed water bottle that filters ordinary tap water as you drink it, saving all those disposable plastic vessels filling up our landfills. (Each colorful filter represents about 300 bottles saved.)

We’ve been working with them recently and are looking forward to some great new online coming soon, in partnership with Safari Sundays, who, as luck would have it, are another bunch of really cool folks.

Please stay tuned!

Happy Holidays everyone!

admin — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 20:57:05 +0000

Big update coming to MonsterABC iPhone app

admin — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 17:02:53 +0000

There’s a new version of MonsterABC which will be available very soon, and it includes 2 new challenges for the kiddies. Stay tuned…

MonsterABC in the App Store >>

(And, as always, you can download some great free printouts for your little ones to color, by going here.)

Music video for Willie Heath Neal

admin — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 18:57:44 +0000

Completed in our, um, spare time as a favor for our dear friends at Chicken Ranch Records, this is a low-fi music video for Austin singer/songwriter Willie Heath Neal. It’s a terrific rockabilly cover of an classic old C.W. McCall country song (“Classifieds”), and it was a blast to work on. Footage was DIY, shot by Ranch staffers using barebones equipment.

It was also a pleasure to find that we never tired of hearing the song in the office, which is an extreme rarity when working on projects with audio.

Need more motion graphics wizards!

admin — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 14:44:49 +0000

We’re looking to expand our roster of Motion Graphics resources on a project basis, so if you (or someone you know) is a highly-skilled, reliable and easy-going motion designer, please get in touch.

After Effects (CS4 and/or CS5) wizardry is an absolute must, and 3D knowledge is a big plus but certainly not required. We work with folks both on- and off-site, but we generally start new resources off at our office until we’re all comfortable with workflow. NYC-based is preferred, but don’t necessarily let that stop you from giving us a shout; you never know.

Let us know what your standard rate is and what sort of availability you generally have. (Obviously, if you haven’t had a vacation in years because you’re always far too busy, then it might not be a good fit. But really, take some time for yourself on occasion. Jeez.)

Email us here with rate, availability, CV and link to your reel/site.