Hillman Curtis
Bio
Hillman Curtis is founder and creative director of hillmancurtis, inc., a design studio with offices in San Francisco and New York City. Hillman has designed some of the world's most visited sites, including Yahoo.com, Adobe.com, Fox SearchLight Pictures, and has led design initiatives for clients such as AOL, RollingStone, MTV, and Aquent. His work has been recognized worldwide and garnered the industry's top honors, including the One Show Gold, The Communication Arts Award of Excellence, The Webby, Adweek Icon Gold Award, SXSW Best of Show, and others.
He has appeared as the keynote and featured speaker at design conferences worldwide and his work has been featured in a variety of major design publications. Hillman’s first book, Flash Web Design (New Riders, USA) has sold over 100,000 copies and has been translated into 12 languages. His second book, MTIV, Process, Inspiration and Practice for the New Media Designer, was released in 2002, and is required reading in many design schools, and is currently in its third printing. His latest book, Creating Short Films for the Web, was released in August of this year.
Hillman's most recent venture has been into the world of film and video. His Designer Series—a series of short documentaries on designers such as Milton Glaser, Paula Scher, and Stefan Sagmeister, have been viewed over 250,000 times collectively and published online by the American Institute of Graphic Design. He has directed several short features—all currently making the rounds at the top film festivals—as well as two successful music videos.
Session
Hillman on Video
In my session, I will be speaking about my recent transition into digital video.
We'll look at a brief overview of recent work, including redesigning Yahoo, and then share how I got into making movies.
I'll show several shorts from the designer series as well as my films on film narrative series.
I will talk about how the lessons I learned in web design and flash design, especially the lesson of limitations as allies not enemies hold true in filmmaking as well and finally how years of flash motion graphics have influenced my very minimalist approach to filmmaking.