by Common Machine in New Design on Saturday 10 December 2011

When the Miami Design District asked Common Machine to provide video services again this year during the weeklong festiganza of Art Basel week, we suggested that instead of the usual hose-everything-down and make a few videos set to music (that wouldn’t do much more than play on repeat in their tastefully minimalist conference room) we make a series of short, documentary films profiling artists, designers and curators and create a microsite for the films that was, well, tastefully minimalist.

Built on the Cargo Collective platform (of which we are huge fans), we created for a mood board-style vertical scroll with large, colorful images surrounding the films. No click throughs, no pages to get lost in, just an image-heavy experience with short films detailing installations and exhibitions from art world figures like sound-and-light artist Christopher Janney, graffiti muralist Retna, urban interventionist Rubén Ochoa and quite a few others. While some of the films are, by the nature of the client’s needs, focused on one-off exhibits, several of the films serve as more durable documents of the artists, which we feel not only benefits the client longer term (via the Miami Design District branding embedded in the videos) but adds something of value to the larger conversation of art and design today.

Founded by Brett O’Bourke, Common Machine is a collaborative of storytellers, strategists and artists who provide creative and production services to brands and agencies. We make films, commercials and branded entertainment for the web.