2024
TERMINUS
CREATIVE DIRECTION
ART DIRECTION
MOTION DESIGN
What began as an exploration of style to push my abilities in glitch aesthetics and integrating graphic design techniques into my motion design workflow, ended as a dialogue between my own work and various AI-driven techniques.
This triptych is a meditation on my anxiety (as well as curiosity) around the use of AI in creative fields. As it developed it became a story about the hubris in our innovations and our failure to believe in our own creative abilities.
WAR
As a child, I was obsessed with adventure stories, classic hero’s journeys. Knights and chivalry. Ideas of honor and the bushido code. Vikings facing alien and unwelcoming seas; Odysseus finding his way home after that terrible saga.
Whether it was David and Goliath or the slaying of an ancient, mighty dragon—this idea of standing up for oneself and one’s values against insurmountable odds (even when our champions weren’t victorious) was deeply inspiring to me.
What I realize now is that I was drawn to the idea of human excellence—our ability to achieve greater and greater heights if we only committed to ourselves and our dreams. Supported one another in standing back up, no matter how fell the beast before us.
SUBJUGATION
Growing older and beginning to face the realities of early adulthood, my attentions turned inward. Humanity having conquered all physical frontiers, I began to consider the triumphs over our minds and imaginations. I became fascinated with surrealism and psychology, particularly that of Carl Jung.
Ideas of archetypes—symbols provided by the universe to guide us in our search for meaning. The stories I found so enchanting in my youth achieved such status, because they lived in all of us.
Our imaginations, therefore, were the true frontiers—the stories we told and the meanings we derived from them the clearest form of human achievement. As I explored these ideas it became clear that creativity is likely the most human of endeavors. If our gods made us in their image, it was the gift of genesis they bestowed rather than appearances or even rational thought. Creation itself is the mighty dragon that dwells always before us waiting for a new champion to take it on.
ASSIMILATION
But what does it mean to create? When we think about stories it is not the ending that really matters. We don’t show up for “There and Back Again”—no, that’s merely the cover page; the abstract.
A hero’s journey is exactly that: a journey. Likewise creating these stories is about the time, love, and strife it takes to get there. Your champion will undergo numerous changes: they might get what they want, but they’re certain to learn what they need. What we need as their authors is to allow ourselves the space to undergo those same changes—which can only happen when we give ourselves space to grow. Time to master our craft, mastering ourselves in the process.
Had I produced these images with AI, had I provided shortcuts to the result: prompting with a cover and receiving an ending. I would not have undergone the journey. I would be a lesser version of myself, my works cheaper for it. Because of that, for me, AI will not remain in my toolkit. I will focus on my craft, my mastery; and in doing so, grow as surely as my beloved characters and ideas.
Production Selects
Developing this triptych was a lengthy process of design R&D. A call-and-response between various glitch and graphic design techniques and a deep, inward reflection on my own taste.
When I began, the story I was telling had not emerged consciously yet; so the rich introspection involved in these designs—and the sedimentary approach to building complexity from many, many layers—resulted in beautiful design artifacts that were not appropriate for inclusion in the final works.
These are some of those artifacts.
