“So come on, take me into the deep end, and show me how to let it go,” sings Sloan Struble (aka Dayglow) on his new single off of his upcoming album “People in Motion.” It’s an upbeat track, with vintage synths in the music and water imagery in the lyrics, so when we made the video for it we wanted to get across that same feeling of freedom and “letting it go” in the visuals. Bright colors and psychedelic patterns created by sprays and waves of water, distortions and reflections, and dancing throughout.

Director: Drew Tyndell
Executive Producer: Randi Wilens
Executive Producer: Eric Barrett
Producer: Rhiannon Tyndell
Associate Producer: Kate Manning
Director of Photography: Noah Deats
Record Label: AWAL / Very Nice Records
Video Commissioner + GM: Bianca Bhagat
Creative Commissioner: Cheyenne Miller
VP, Product Management: Justin Macchio
Creative Director: Dana Trippe
Artist Management: Ryan Langlois & Drew Simmons at Foundations

“You and Me on the Rock,” a track from Brandi Carlile’s album “In These Silent Days,” is a visual allegory in just the lyrics alone. Filled with nature references and odes to the joys of the simple life, it’s a rejection of modern day McMansion flashiness. It’s also an homage to Joni Mitchell, so for our video we took a little inspiration from Joni’s painted album covers and “back to the garden” era aesthetics, and illustrated Brandi’s lyrics in hand-collaged, hand-painted stop-motion animation.

Artist: Brandi Carlile
Director: Drew Tyndell
Label: Elektra
Original footage: Jade Ehlers
Representation: Randi Wilens

Gatorade’s “Inner Strong” campaign goes inside the minds of star athletes, using animation to show what fuels them in their sport. We got the chance to tell the great Serena Williams’ story: a tennis ball serves as a portal into her mind, where we see her thoughts drawn out in colorful animation as she tells us how she finds her inner strong.

Client: Gatorade
Agency: Swift
Music: “Life is Good” by Future (feat. Drake)

Composer and pianist Hania Rani teamed up with her childhood friend, cellist Dobrawa Czocher on Inner Symphonies, their upcoming album. It’s an album born in the pandemic times—the music is beautiful and moody and evocative. It’s also ultimately hopeful, especially in the track “There Will Be Hope.” In our video for it, we try to capture the feeling of finding that light far off in the distance, hard to see at first, but gradually getting closer, little by little.

Director: Drew Tyndell
Artists: Hania Rani and Dobrawa Czocher
Producer: Rhiannon Tyndell
Production Manager: Sanne-Marije Aartsen
Label: Deutsche Grammophon

Django Django’s song “Under Fire,” the first of five new tracks on the deluxe version of their album “Glowing In The Dark,” is a bit dark and mysterious. Our video for it sees lead singer Vincent Neff driving around London at night in a vintage BMW—the city is strangely quiet, and the mission is unclear.

Director: Drew Tyndell
Executive Producer: Richard Grewe
Producer: Ben Pengilly
Post producer: Rhiannon Tyndell
Production Company: My Accomplice
Director of Photography: Tamas Meder
1st AC: Alex Tan
Gaffer: Jazz Ballhall
Grip: Steve Gilbert
Commissioner: Rhian Emanuel

“Set the Table,” a collaboration between artists Ritt Momney and Claud, is a look back at the sometimes messiness of family relationships, a song about regret and wanting to go back and start all over again. Our video takes the mood of the song and channels it into what looks like a dark, dreamlike moving painting. Brushstrokes that are a little hazy and abstract and unclear, just like memories are when they play back in your mind.

Artist: Ritt Momney, featuring Claud
Director: Drew Tyndell
Label: Disruptor/Columbia

“Something,” the first track off of Dayglow’s upcoming album “Harmony House,” is an upbeat and energetic song that manages to pack in plenty of hooks and even a little social media commentary into its two minutes. Dayglow’s Sloan Struble wrote the song after scrolling through Instagram one day and getting turned off by all the materialism and just the waste of time of it all. “Something” is about taking that time back and making something of it. Time plays a big role in our video for the song, along with the chaoticness of social media in general—all shown in bright animation.

Artist: Dayglow
Director: Drew Tyndell
Label: Very Nice Records
Original footage: Jackson Ingraham

Another tour visual for Beck—this time we took on one of his most iconic songs, “Loser.”

Artist: Beck
Label: Capitol

Filmmaker/designer Winston Hacking brought Drew on board to create the type for his new animated lyric video for Run the Jewels’ “JU$T.” The song—a collaboration between the band and Pharrell Williams and Zack de la Rocha—points a (middle) finger at the racist past that lurks beneath the idea of the American Dream. In the video, Hacking collaged together images of the present and the past to drive home the song’s message. And for his type treatment, Drew clipped headlines from old newspaper archives, using stop motion animation to bring the lyrics to the forefront.

Artist: Run The Jewels
Song: JU$T
Director: Winston Hacking
Co-Designer: Andrew Zukerman
Type animation: Drew Tyndell

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of their album Surrender, the Chemical Brothers have released a new version of the single “Out of Control,” remixed by The Avalanches. We got the chance to collaborate on a lyric video for it with Jimmy Turrell and the artist behind the Chemical Brothers’ iconic 1990s cover art, Kate Gibb. Incorporating their printwork and using it to weave textures throughout, we designed a video that tells the story of love, dancing, and letting go, with a nod to British rave culture of the ‘90s.

Artist: The Chemical Brothers/The Avalanches (with vocals by Bernard Sumner and Bobby Gillespie)
Song: Out of Control
Directors: Kate Gibb, Drew Tyndell, Jimmy Turrell
Footage: Jimmy Turrell
Design/Animation/Edit: Computer Team

When LeBron James was dealing with frustrating muscle injuries and couldn’t find the right supplements to help pull him though, he and his trainer went out and started Ladder, a sports nutrition company designed to deliver professional results. We were brought on to help tell the story in animation: from LeBron’s struggles on the court to overcoming and playing at his best.

Client: Ladder
Agency: Where It’s Greater
Producer: Gail von Dedenroth

Washed Out (Ernest Greene) just released an audio/visual album called Mister Mellow, and we're excited to be a part of it. Our video for "Floating By" is as much inspired by the song's lyrics (all apathy, boredom, and escape ) as by its collaged together, trippy sound. Like the song, our video is a mashup of parts that flow together, starting out very methodical, illustrating the theme of boredom and the feeling of just going through the motions. Eventually it gets weirder and weirder—bright colors take over and the video goes from routine to daydreaming to escape the everyday grind.

*2017 winner of The Motion Awards short form/music video category

Artist: Washed Out
Album: Mister Mellow
Label: Stones Throw
Management: Constant Artists
Director: Drew Tyndell
Producer: Rhiannon Leifheit Tyndell

Nike recently released new sneakers with different iterations of its iconic Swoosh logo, designed by Carolyn Davidson back in 1971. To celebrate, nine different animators from around the world were chosen to create a piece based on one of these renditions. We were honored to make an animation inspired by 1972’s colorful sunburst logo.

Clients: Nike and Foot Locker
Agency: One Hundred
Music: Tony Quattro

Other animators involved: @grand_chamaco @rhymezlikedimez @masonlondon @tiagomajuelos @recsoverto @numecaniq @glanderco @ruffmercy

Teaming up again with Beck to create stage graphics for his tour, we worked with artist Jimmy Turrell to mash together a fun hand clapping visual to his classic song “Where It’s At”.

Artist: Beck
Label: Capitol

We were commissioned by Young The Giant to create a social media campaign for the rollout of their upcoming album, Mirror Master, for which we’ve made Instagram stories and teasers. We also made a visualizer for “Call Me Back,” using hand-drawn animation to amplify the song’s theme of disconnect and loneliness by setting the action in a vast, cosmic world.

Artist: Young The Giant
Song: Call Me Back
Album: Mirror Master
Label: Elektra
Director: Drew Tyndell

How do you visually explain the superposition principle without going the route of an old school filmstrip? For our video for Young The Giant’s “Superposition”—a song partly inspired by quantum physics—we went with optical illusions and tricks of the eye: band members multiply and converge back into one, rocks spin on their own, day and night are blurred. And because you can’t really demonstrate superposition without waves, we set it all on the coast, giving the Pacific Ocean a costarring role.

Artist: Young The Giant
Song: Superposition
Label: Elektra
Director: Drew Tyndell
Producer: Rhiannon Leifheit Tyndell

“Can’t look back, can’t look too far ahead” sings Hayley Williams in Paramore’s song “Caught in the Middle,” echoing the all-too familiar feeling of being stuck somewhere between past and future selves and not quite knowing where to go next. In our video for the song, we put Hayley, Taylor, and Zac into animated worlds that go from ‘80s nostalgia one moment to futuristic sci-fi the next. The band runs from one world to another, never able to stay in one place, always being chased by one particularly relentless giant orange.

Artist: Paramore
Album: After Laughter
Label: Fueled By Ramen
Director: Drew Tyndell
Producer: Rhiannon Leifheit Tyndell

Indie rock legend (and fellow Portlander) Stephen Malkmus and his band the Jicks launched their new album Sparkle Hard along with a short documentary film and a series of music video vignettes directed by Brook Linder. In them we see Malkmus at the tennis court, on horseback, and, in this short piece we collaborated on, being ambushed by colorful animation.

Artist: Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks
Album: Sparkle Hard
Label: Domino
Director: Brook Linder

In addition to making music videos for bands and artists we also sometimes design t-shirts. Here are a few of our favorites from the last few years.

Labels: Warner/Elektra/Atlantic/Wagram

Paramore's new single "Hard Times" is upbeat and '80s-inspired, so when JOFFCO approached us to add some spice to the song's music video, we went full steam ahead, channeling early MTV favorites with lots of hand-drawn animation, rotoscoping, and stop motion.

Artist: Paramore
Album: After Laughter
Label: Fueled By Ramen
Director: Andrew Joffe
Animation: Computer Team

Graphic artist Jimmy Turrell, visuals designer behind Beck's upcoming album Colors, approached us to make some animations to collage into his lyric video for "Dear Life." We took inspiration from his album artwork, incorporating bold geometric shapes in bright colors to be juxtaposed against cinematic scenes: sometimes dark, sometimes strange, sometimes cryptic. The result, like the song's lyrics, is a mashup of imagery and meaning. Rotoscoped ants and burning cars.

Artist: Beck
Song: Dear Life
Album: Colors
Label: Capitol
Directors: Jimmy Turrell, Brook Linder, and Laura Gorun
Animation: Computer Team

Noah Kahan's upbringing on a tree farm in rural Vermont inspires his songwriting, and it definitely inspired us when we were making a video for his song "Young Blood." To give the video a rustic, almost handmade feel, we printed out every frame of footage, adding animation in watercolor to create an ever-changing natural environment influenced by Noah's lyrics. A world that at times can be beautiful, threatening, lonely, and, ultimately, exciting.

Artist: Noah Kahan
Label: Republic Records
Management: Foundations Music
Director: Drew Tyndell
Producer: Rhiannon Leifheit Tyndell

UK singer Arlissa and producer Jonas Blue's remake of the artist's song "Hearts Ain't Gonna Lie" takes what was a soft, acoustic breakup song and transforms it into an upbeat, danceable breakup song. So it was only fitting that it would have a colorful, buoyant video for its debut. Director Alexandra Gavillet approached us to add some subtle animation and flashes of color to play up the song's vibrant energy.
 

Artist: Arlissa/Jonas Blue
Director: Alexandra Gavillet
Animation: Computer Team

Adidas' NMD line mixes the old with the new, taking classic shapes and styles from the archives and updating them with new technology. We went the same route when making an animation for its latest urban exploration-themed social media campaign. Incorporating a modern street photo, we manipulated it using technology both old and new, distorting the photo on a scanner, and then bringing it back around with animation.

Agency: Roundhouse
Project Coordinator: Joe Packer
Photographer: Will Nichols
Producer: Rita Badalamenti

When we created an animated screen for the TED17 conference in Vancouver we had no idea we'd be designing a background for the Pope. Our animation for session four was inspired by its theme of Health, Life, Love, and set the scene for compelling talks by the likes of Serena Williams, Atul Gawande, and His Holiness himself, Pope Francis.

Client: TED
Creative Producer: Emily Pidgeon
Photo Credits: 1. Bret Hartman/TED;  2. Emily Pidgeon/TED;  3.Ryan Lash/TED;  4. Bret Hartman/TED

While making the music video for Young the Giant's song "Something to Believe in," the first official radio single off of Home of the Strange, we took inspiration from the album title to really go weird. We also took inspiration from the lyrics, animating all the members of the band into a dark and sometimes eerie natural world that becomes more and more dreamlike as the song goes on.

Artist: Young The Giant
Album: Home of the Strange
Label: Fueled By Ramen
Director: Drew Tyndell
Producer: Rhiannon Tyndell
Rep: Jen Herrera at Las Bandas Be Brave

© 2016 ATLANTIC RECORDING CORP.

We had lots of fun working with General Elektriks (the music project of keyboard extraordinaire Hervé Salters) to make a video for "Angle Boogie," an upbeat (and really danceable) song with a bit of an edge. Going along with the geometry theme, we added in sinister shapes, graphic backdrops, and colorful numbers. Also, a lot of dancing.

Artist: General Elektriks
Album: To Be a Stranger
Label: Wagram Music
Director: Drew Tyndell
Producer: Rhiannon Tyndell

We're proud to have had animated the teaser page for XOXO 2016, Portland's beloved art/tech festival that is on hiatus for now (but hopefully not forever). Also fun: creating a layout for the page incorporating Moniker's new XOXO brand identity. 

Client: XOXO
Identity design: Moniker
Programmer: Paolo Pereira

California Inspires Me is a series of animated videos made in collaboration by Google Play and The California Sunday Magazine, featuring famous natives and newcomers telling their stories in their own words. Animating musician/comedian/actor/late night show bandleader phenom Reggie Watts' words led us on a weird and wild California trip, filled with muppets, breakdancing, and even some yoga.

Clients: Google Play and The California Sunday Magazine
Animation: Drew Tyndell
Music: Shannon Ferguson
Sound Production: Mooj Zadie
Special Thanks to Kevin Ferguson

An ongoing personal project of animated gifs. 

Sure, we love the Yule Log when it's broadcast on TV in December, but Daniel Savage's annual Yule Log 2.0 is a lot more fun. Here's our bit of holiday cheer from 2015.

The footage in Adult Swim's cult favorite show Off the Air is loosely bound together by a theme, so when we made the opening loop for "Shapes" we kept it simple and geometric. You can watch the entire episode here. (Much weirdness will follow)

Client: Adult Swim/Cartoon Network
Show Creator/Producer: Dave Hughes
Animation: Drew Tyndell

If you ever find yourself awake at 4 AM (and aren't prone to nightmares), you might want to turn on the TV and watch Adult Swim's Off the Air. Each episode's theme is reflected in the title, but that's about as much explanation as you'll get in this show that's made up of hallucinatory animations, bizarre footage. and viral videos. Here's our loop for "Holes."

Watch the full episode here. 

Client: Adult Swim/Cartoon Network
Show Creator/Producer: Dave Hughes
Animation: Drew Tyndell

Our biggest project (literally) had to have been the time our animations were projected onto the iconic Sydney Opera House, when we were one of over 20 international studios chosen to create a short animation for Vivid Sydney 2015. Each participant was given a word to use as a theme, and ours was FILL. You can see our section, starting at 0:58.

Client: Universal Everything
Event: Vivid Sydney
Art direction: Drew Tyndell