From Form

0:02 Hello everyone wow you're with a lot of people.

0:06 So I'm Ashley this is jurian and together we are from form and we are a studio for film and design we're based in Rotterdam the Netherlands and as a couple we work between short films commercials campaigns film titles graphic design photography and animation. And this.

0:29 This is our studio in Rotterdam it's like an old car garage in a in a very cozy neighborhood and our dog Kuro always on our side we collect a lot of chairs also and lovely people around and this is joyy she was our intern for two years ago and she made a a little clip of our work ♪

1:22 [Applause]

1:52 thank you thanks yeah.

1:58 So we met together in art school back in 2007 yeah and we started working together during a graduation project Ashley was doing interior and I was doing film and after graduating we started the studio together but sort of pretty naive in a way I guess you could say we just rented the place and sort of started from there but over the years we have learned and we have developed a lot our projects our clients our signature but also the shaping the the vision of of being a studio and one thing that we learned during all these years is the importance of listening to our Fascinations it's something that that brought us together.

2:44 And it made start the studio and it's still deeply rooted in everything that we do today. And in our projects we always try to start from something that fascinates us.

2:55 So yeah we can really sort of start working from there and yeah yeah you know sort of it embodies something that that we're really excited about and for us it's it's all about cherishing and Gathering things that you find like objects books quotes colors photographs and sort of the more specific the better so couldn't be like a century old desert magazine to an old plastic toy recently we're really into the design of new New York holdo carts I don't know why or a little book that you find at the flea market and following these Fascinations can lead to an intrinsic way of working it can spark joy and it can surprise you in a lot of ways that you don't know it's what it's going to be but yet you still feel very connected to the work and yeah we love going to flea markets together. And we just had this conversation this weekend while visiting flea market here in London and and it's actually quite a nice metaphor for this ID we thought like flea markets they're basically they're this beautiful mess you know they're unorganized they're unstructured basically they're not dictated by any algorithms and therefore it forces you to hunt for things that really directly speak to you and a project that illustrates the importance of listening to your Fascinations is Amsterdam Museum night we did this campaign for the last four years. And this event is an it's an iconic cultural event where more than 60 Museums open their door at night and in 2001 we were asked to do the design for the outdoor and the online campaign and during this Amsterdam Museum night you go from looking at a Rembrant to a drawing session and you end up at a party at a foro museum and and it was really clear to us that the campaign needed to express this diversity of the event but how do we represent like over 60 museums in one campaign and with so many museums to choose from like some visitors might pick two While others criss cross the city the entire night so how do we make it relatable with for such a diverse audience but we were also intrigued by all these connections happening in the city at the same time. And it reminded reminded us of a quote of Charles and Ray e eventually everything connects people at these objects the quality of the connection is the key to the Quality per se and one of their iconic toy designs illustrates this perfectly and it's this children's card deck over it's a it's a game that exist out of um 40 cards from the 50s and they have all these yeah little crops and a w wide variety of textures and as we felt this could be like an interesting approach we did a little animation test with these cards just to see of like a stop motion approach would work for us.

6:24 And it got us. Actually really excited so with two camp us we went to Amsterdam and we started looking for our own details throughout the city and in all the museums so we photographed these little fragments of art museums and soon we got hundreds of photos but once we had all these photos we also felt a little bit lost and it didn't really feel right when we tried to make our own cards and something was missing and not only we were missing the people like the audience but we also felt that we needed to make like an extra step so we printed the cards and we start playing around with them. And we tried to print them extra extra large but it wasn't like a really good container that would connect all these fragments and then also one of our freely Market strolls we found these old postcard booklets and yeah it was just laying around in the studio and we love the texture and the classic binder and this. Actually gave us the idea to make a a flip book as a visual concept for the campaign so rring to all the unexpected combination combinations during the the event so we created a Flip Flip Book with blank pages and then we could fill fill it in digitally with animation. And we also photographed people in our studio and combined with the crops we made in the museums yeah we had a series of gifts ♪

8:33 and then for last year's Edition we came up with the team of this that and there in dutches did. D and we used like scattered stickers and voice samples throughout the campaign ♪

9:23 and this is how the campaign translated to print in the in the city of Amsterdam yeah and so last summer M Museum night they approached us again and they asked us to work on another campaign but this time we wanted to do something different so we used the flip book for three years with different variations so yeah we felt like it was a good time to let go of the flipbook and and luckily they said yes and they were open to to new ideas new approaches and we were still intrigued by the core concept of the event bringing together so many experiences during one night so the issue they addressed was that it's tempting for visitors to stick to the popular places you know like go to only the rebron night watch or or F go and they wanted us to emphasize the events diversity and the hidden gems of the program so really stimulate visitors to to move and explore like a museum for self-playing pianos or the Amsterdam pipe Museum so you can open any Museum door basically and dive into a new universe you never knew existed so this concept of Museum night acting as a Multiverse interconnecting all these places formed the foundation for last year's campaign and we felt like during Museum night you know you can travel through past present and future and unlike the flip book where the focus was really on the details of the museums this time we focused on the traveling experience of the visitor and we felt portals were our main concept to focus on.

10:53 So yeah portals transport you to other places and times but they also symbolize this idea of being transported through a feeling or through an experience especially during Museum night so we did a lot of test in the studio to see what these portals could look like but here also sort of was lacking something.

11:13 So we felt like it's it's not only going to be portals that's going to help us to create a campaign but we settled on this idea of a visual exploration of of movement and of course then you end up with mbridge so his book has been on our desk for a long time waiting to be used for the right project and yeah we love the way of researching you know it's it's such a transparent way.

11:35 And we were also really fascinated by this kind of stick figure walk cycle so we aimed for a similar zoy Trope like Motion in the campaign and another influence reference was the movement exploration for the Prince of Persia game. And in particular how the makers traced these self-recorded walk Cycles from VHS tapes using using analog photography and adding markers so it was it's really this digital analog hybrid that we really loved to use so we really like this lowfy approach and is of characters in The Campaign walk like stick figures and it it feels separated from its original purpose so we did these stop motion tests in the studio and some light experiments sort of to mimic this feeling of of traveling 3D portals and in the end we used a treadmill and you know we had some talent in the studio and show it like quite lowkey with a just just a few people.

12:31 And then we started to combine it with this other Fascination which is this retro sci-fi uh aesthetic so then in the end we would end up with this sort of 80s Nostalgia inspired mbridge Multiverse ♪

13:22 [Applause]

13:30 so and then again also here we translated this to the print campaign throughout the city of Amsterdam and we even got so excited with our composer bwart that we asked him to do a to do a vinyl like a do a full soundtrack of of all the songs so in the end he had to do it in two days it was pretty crazy we actually we brought a few copies so if you want to buy one yeah come see us after the stage so yeah as as we all know I think that concluding you know scrolling on social media we're constantly overwhelmed with this visual stream you know of amazing work from talented artists and designers and then there's also all these visual Trends so scrolling for a few minutes it's it's really tempting to start comparing your work. And sort of feel insecure about it or yeah feel like ah maybe I should do this or go into this direction and to us listening to your Fascinations Remains the only true antidote to that.

14:29 And we believe it's really the gateway to creating authentic and intrinsic work. And it's something that so personal that it's it's it's independent of Trends and you can never fully explain it. And it embodies something like a culmination of everything that you've seen heard or felt in your life it's something so genuine yeah you feel attracted to it it makes it an honest lead in your creative path so when you're in doubt think back of that unorganized flea market and look for the things that speak to your soul thank you thank you