The simplicity of the M/M (Paris) website belies the depth of their actual work. Based in Paris, France, they are a small studio trying to connect visual communication and how an audience perceives it in new ways.

Can you tell us a little about M/M (Paris) studio and your background or role there?

M/M (Paris) is a partnership between Michael Amzalag and Mathias Augustyniak. We started working together straight after art school (Royal College of Arts, London for Mathias and Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, Paris for Michael), working primarly for the music industry. As our interests have always been wider, we have since evolved that into very different fields.

What kind of work do you look for? The work that comes out of M/M seems very fine-arts driven.

Well, it is now becoming more and more difficult to describe our activities, as we are as much involved in art (by designing catalogues and books for art institutions, by working closely in collaborations with artists like Philippe Parreno, Inez Van Lamsweerde, Pierre Huyghe); as we are involved in fashion (we’ve been art directing catalogues and campaigns for designers and brands like Yohji Yamamoto, Balenciaga, Louis Vuitton, Martine Sitbon, Jil Sander amongst); or in music (we’ve also been teaching graphic design and communication in Switzerland over the last five years, and are currently designing a Café in Paris).

Is the Verspertine CD package and video your first project for Björk?

Our collaboration with her started in 1998, when she commissioned us together with photographers Inez Van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin for the sleeve of her compilation of videos, Volumen. A year later she asked us again to think about her book project Björk as designers/editors, which is soon to be published by Little-I in the UK and Bloomsbury in the US. Then came the video, which was originally planned for a song from the Dancer in the Dark soundtrack. She was cherishing the project, but decided to postpone it a bit as she was writing new material she felt would fit even better with our initial ideas. It then became the video for Hidden Place, the first single from Vespertine. At the very end, she decided to ask the four of us to do the sleeve, as well.

How do you approach a project like this?

Like any other project — same involvement, same interest. Our collaboration with her has been growing naturally and with mutual confidence over the years.

Did you deal with Björk directly or did art direction come from Elektra, the record label?

Elektra is only the licensed label for the U.S. She commissions everything by herself, and is very instinctive…no control freak.

What was she like to work with?

Genius, genuine, generous, and above all, trustful.

Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin are credited as well as M/M Paris on the CD booklet as the artists/designers/photographers…how did this actually work?

We’ve been working regularly together for some years on some fashion campaigns (Yohji Yamamoto, Balenciaga, Louis Vuitton…) and since we do work as a team, we believe it goes beyond the common notions of “art direction” and “photography.” Even if at the end we all have very specific and different skills, the project is collective, and every one of us is part of the process. That’s why we decided to credit ourselves collectively, to blur the lines between us four.

What was it like co-directing the video for Hidden Place?

Spending four days in an empty, frozen 10,000 square foot studio shooting close-ups of a face and some liquids pouring over a mask was an unforgettable experience. Then spending days and days and days in some dark rooms looking at ever-changing-color-balance TV monitors in the back of an operator. Eating bad sandwiches, crisps and sushi.

Where did the idea come from to shoot the video for Hidden Place without any cuts? Close-up shots panning around the face fit in very nicely with the theme of the song, as well.

We always wanted to get as close to her as we could, as we all felt she had never been portrayed as the “real” and beautiful woman she is. This is somehow taboo, to observe a pop star with no makeup from a distance of half an inch. Then the idea of the liquid works as a visualization of all possible emotions pulsating and circulating in her very busy brain. The loop idea was a main point for us as well, trying to extend the usual time frame of pop video super-fast editing, to make it hypnotising, mesmerising and irritating, like an eternally burning fireplace.

Did any good stories come out during the making of the project?

She cooks good pasta with cream and caviar and sing-a-long Boney M tunes.

What’s the next big thing that we can look for from M/M (Paris)?

Redesigning the Eiffel Tower and waiting for a call from Michael Jackson.

M/M (Paris)

interview by: Jarrett Kertesz

The WDDG is a design collective based in downtown NYC. They have been pushing the limits of what can be done in Flash and also have some great motion work.

Can you give some background information on WDDG?

WDDG was formed as a creative outlet by myself in 1997; it transformed into a creative studio with the Altoids:TooHot campaign in the fall of 1999; and has continued to evolve and change for the last two years.

How does WDDG work?

WDDG is a lot like your typical studio. We work hard, we’re easily distracted, we play a lot of video games, and we listen to a lot of obscure music. We value creativity and humor. We have fun on the projects where the client lets us say something. We like to be creative and be challenged. We like to do new things and to experiment. We’re ambitious, and we’re always trying to push things: to innovate.

What would you say has changed since WDDG started? Are your goals the same?

Our goal from the beginning has been to be creative and to make cool shit. To this day the methods may have changed, but the goal has not.

Do you see yourselves branching out into other media?

Let the Internet burn.

What was the inspiration for Anamorph?

The impetus for the project came from our desire to develop a demo-reel. But as we began work on the demo-reel, the concept of just editing together a bunch of clips of our previous work with some semi-obscure techno track running in the background just began to give us a slow, sucking feeling. When we get a project, we usually sit down and brainstorm ideas for the project. We try to come at problems from different and unexpected angles. With the demo-reel, we outlined the goal of the project: to show our capabilities with full motion video. So with that in mind, we approached it as a new entity, not as a montage of previous work.

Who would you credit as some of your influences, as far as motion graphics are concerned?

Well each one of us has varied and numerous influences. Mine tend to be Stanley Kubrick, Saul Bass and Chris Cunningham. Matt Anderson (konstruktiv.net) loves Chris Cunningham and David Lynch. We’re all into video games, so that definitely counts.

Were there any movies that helped jump-start the creative process on any projects?

Do a couple of games of Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo count? How about Yoshi’s Island? The bubble-people in Nathan’s (nginco) piece in Devlab, and in the Maverick site came from him playing Yoshi Island at work.

Your use of Flash can sometimes be seen as a part of the overall experience of a site, rather than something that screams, “Look! Flash!” Is this something that you have tried to integrate into your work as a design collective?

Our first commercial site: TooHot.com was a “Look, Flash!” site. And before that, I had been doing “Flash” sites for fun, for about a year and a half. I personally reached my limit of tolerance for that type of site a little after TooHot came out, so naturally we’ve tried to explore the other things that you can do with the medium besides scream out “Hey! Flash site over here!” If you look at the majority of “Flash sites” out there now, there’s just so much crap that it can be frightening. And on the other side of the coin, if you’re going to go out and develop a killer flash site, how much better are you going to make that site than PrayStation or 2advanced? If you go out and try to do a new Flash site like those, you’re only going to be able to do incrementally better. It pays to stop, think for a second, and ask yourself how you can do something different — really different. That is where you’re going to have the most success.

Not too many clients are going to let you create a content-heavy site for them entirely in Flash. How did you sell the idea to Maverick?

This is one of those instances where we paused for a second and tried to approach a problem from a different angle. Maverick wanted a stylish site that was heavy on content. HTML wasn’t going to cut it in the style department. DHTML is a nightmare. And a “Flash Site” was only going to obscure relevant data behind numerous clicks, transitions and inertial sliders. We pitched the idea of a HTML/DHTML site built entirely in Flash. It allows total control over design and content, and is (more or less) 100% compatible from browser to browser. We reasoned that more users know how to use a scroll-bar than know how to use any “Flash Site” interface, so we made the pages flow and scroll, and left all of the content on the screen. I really think that in the future, you’re going to see many more sites like this.

Can you talk about the backend of Maverick Records? What went into the production of it?

About 60kb of PERL, 25 Generator templates, a SQL Server database and a couple of spreadsheets that color the navigation and the main index page. Design comps and the system design took up the first month, construction took up the second month, and it took about two weeks to get the bugs ironed out. Pretty good for a three-man project! A pretty in-depth profile of what went into the contraction of the site is going to be featured at Macromedia in the next month or so — there really is a lot to it.

What keeps things exciting at WDDG?

New ideas, clients that listen to us and the general instability of the current market make for an interesting life.

Thanks James

WDDG
Maverick Records

interview by: Jarrett Kertesz