Grant Orchard is an award winning animation director and designer who lives and works in London. Based at the renowned StudioAKA, he has created many eye-catching spots for a wide range of clients. Alongside that he has, in his own words, “had a lot of fun moving a whole bunch of small shapes around.” As his hugely successful Love Sport series testifies.
I’m at StudioAKA finishing off a job we’re doing with the lovely and talented designer Chris Gray for what must be our first iPhone App, and getting our teeth stuck into a piece we’re doing with GTF for the Science Museum.
They know exactly what I’m doing. They’ve got their finger on my pulse and everyone else’s. That’s what you get for having two ex-police officers with time on their hands for parents.
A touch of Salma Hayek with a long beard.
If a cosmic finger came down from the sky and pointed to me requesting all my senses bar one I’d keep sight. And then being particularly cruel requested one of my limbs, I’d give it my left leg from the knee down.
I got 99% in my cycling proficiency test. The best I’ve ever done in anything ever. Although I think the average for that test is around 97%, but I still clutch that certificate with pride.
Yes indeed. Things I don’t know I know! I’ve actually been taught them and they’ve re-surfaced with added information that I’ve collected over the years attached. A bit like that old sweet with pocket lint stuck to it, but its knowledge lint.
Diaorea. (Diarrhoea is the real spelling. But who says it with that many r’s!)
I learn incredible facts on Stephen Fry’s QI all the time, but I can never recall any after the programme. I can tell you for a FACT that QI is a very good show.
Just finishing off a film that we’ve been chipping away at for a while now. It’s a three parter and we’re on the final part now, so I’M EXCITED.
Carpentry.
I must admit I’m probably a bit smitten. Although if it’s with her or her work I can’t distinguish. Whether it’s making films, such as the brilliant You, Me and Everyone I Know, creating solo and group art projects or writing short stories, all her work is infused with a joy that I find contagious.
Most know this man can write. They also know he’s prolific. Books – What is the What, Short Short Stories. Publications – McSweeneys, Wholphin. Scripts like Where The Wild Things Are and amazing projects like the 826 Valencia. What I didn’t know until fairly recently is that he’s a pretty good designer to boot. If you can spare an hour this talk he gave on Book cover design alongside Chip Kidd and Milton Glaser is well worth checking out.
I don’t know much about the person who makes these short films, but according to the website they’re going to be 10 of them. I do know that when I watch them I go in to a trance like state that only a swift smack to the back of the head can revive me from.
I saw JJ Villiard’s Son of Satan about 8 years ago and it’s still one of the best graduation films I’ve seen. It’s a 10 minute filmed based on a Charles Bukowski short story about a dysfunctional youth. The whole film is perfect punk. Energetic and aggressively pragmatic in it’s use of sound and image. Unfortunately for us it’s not online, but good for him he’s selling it on his website. Anyone who’s doing a screening, this comes highly recommended. His drawings are mighty fine as well.
As studio spaces go I’ve found none as drool worthy as the Elms Lester Painting Rooms. Based off Tottenham Court Road in London it’s an old tall building originally used for painting theatre backdrops. Now it’s a gallery that keeps half the old studio for resident artists to paint in, while exhibiting in the other half.
Artists such a Jose Parla, Delta and perennial favourite of mine Anthony Lister regularly show there. Definitely worth a knock at their door if your around that area.
