Animation

After releasing an animated short “Grump in the Night” earlier this year, family-run Something’s Awry Productions is back with “Unlucky Charms,” a creepy horror short that came out just before Halloween. Maxon talked with Kris Theorin, the studio’s lead animation director, about how he and his brothers, Nik and Kurtis, wrote the script and made the ambitious film using Maxon One, Unreal’s MetaHuman and After Effects.

When Swiss athletic shoe company, On, recently upgraded their classic Cloud 5 shoe, they reached out to FutureDeluxe to create four films to showcase the brand’s craft, comfort and engineered detail. 3D artist Jordi Cerdà Gaya was called on to model and texture the features of On’s updated Cloud 5 running shoe using ZBrush and Cinema 4D. Maxon talked with Cerdà Gaya about the project workflow, Gaya’s self-taught career as a 3D artist and his plans for the future.

HBO Max’s true crime miniseries “The Staircase” explores the story of Michael Peterson and the suspicious death of his wife Kathleen, who was found dead at the bottom of the stairs in their palatial North Carolina home in 2004. Chicago-based Sarofsky was called on to create an elegant title sequence that spoke to the story’s labyrinthine plot, utilizing reflections, distortions, layers and perspectives to kaleidoscopic effect. The team spoke to Maxon about their work that foreshadows the true crime drama’s themes and a family divided. Created with Cinema 4D, After Effects, Photoshop, Flame and Octane the title sequence is based on a multi-layered, transparent three-dimensional house.

When Reebok wanted CG renderings of visuals and animations for their FW20 line, they reached out to Black Math, asking the design studio to come up with creative ways to connect the shoemaker’s heritage look with today’s styles. Playing with CG in various environments and playgrounds, a design-first company of digital wizards connected past and future for the iconic running shoe brand. Maxon talked with Black Math Executive Producer Evan Fellers about how they approached the retro campaign, particularly the workflow challenges they had to overcome and how Cinema 4D helped them stretch boundaries of commercial work in new and exciting ways.

We can barely believe it ourselves, but this is the 8th year that we will inspire you during our Forward Festivals! For this year's theme “Connect, Create, Collaborate” we curated an amazing line-up with over 50 speakers coming to Berlin and Vienna! Forward Berlin will be taking place from September 22nd - 23rd at Kino International. For Forward Vienna we will be from October 6th-7th at the Gartenbaukino.

From the abstract painting to the manifested sculpture with augmented reality and back to the digital world. Interdisciplinary artist from Austria Ju Schnee is thrilled when the boundaries blur. Her alien-formed, near-breathless sculptures can have a tactile therapeutic effect, while her Augmented Reality works enable new perspectives and create an interplay of analog and digital. Ju is always reinventing herself and continues to experiment with her visual language. We talked about creating the cornerstones of art while being out of pocket, using artificial intelligence as an idea generator, and what it means to create in a constantly changing world. Ju Schnee will speak at the Forward Festival Berlin in September. Next to her, you will be able to hear Creatives like Alice Isaac, Fons Hickmann, Anna Ginsburg and many more.

Every month, the Forward Magazine brings you a selection of noteworthy tracks hand-picked by friends, musicians, speakers of the Forward Festival, and many more. The 42nd edition is a selection by artist Kelli Anderson, who will be speaking at Forward Festival Vienna this October!

From having studied design, photography and philosophy, founding a design Studio “Fons Hickmann M23”, over to holding lectures and workshops at several universities, to being a professor at Berlin University of the Arts. Fons Hickmann does it all! He is a member of the Art Directors Club and the Type Directors Club New York. His studio focuses on corporate design for cultural events, they work for clients such as the State Opera Munich and the Vienna State Opera House. His books are about communication design or everything that hovers around design and aesthetics. One thing is certain - Fons won’t stop anytime soon. So get to know this multitalent better in the following interview where he talks about his background before launching a studio, important features in a design, and how he developed many visually unique designs. Fons Hickmann will speak at the Forward Festival Berlin in September. Next to him, you will be able to hear Creatives like Eike König, Anna Ginsburg, Mr. Bingo and many more.

After having worked for over 10 years in admin related roles, Alice Isaac is pursuing her career in collage and animation realm, creating evocative and juicy works which triggers wide spectrum of moods in the viewer. With a growing audience’s splash and an impressive clientele that includes brands like Prada, Nike and Reebok, as well as a singer Billie Eilish, Alice creates unique imagery ranging from ethereal animation to surreal stills. We caught up online to discuss her approach to self and work, the mixed media blessing, and why you don’t have to expect work to land in your lap swiftly. Alice Isaac will speak at the Forward Festival Berlin in September. Next to her, you will be able to hear Creatives like Cachetejack, Charlotte Rohde, Anna Ginsburg and many more.

Digital Art & Design Studios Builders Club are masters of going beyond what is possible in terms of creating, producing and frankly imagining ways to tell compelling stories. Drawing from backgrounds in photography, film, design and digital art, Builders Club reinvent media in all its shapes and forms. Their dynamic and eruptive style is mainly driven by mixing old and new technologies and challenging the status quo. We shot the founders of Builders Club Jonas Hegi and Julian Simshauser some questions and asked them about their take on navigating growth, collaborating creatively and pushing the industry's standards to establish your own. Builders Club will speak at the Forward Festival Berlin in September. Next to them, you will be able to hear Creatives like Mitchell Eaton, Charlotte Rohde, Looping Lovers and many more.