Boston’s Symphony Hall has been outfitted with a wonderful projection screen that rolls down over the organ pipes. I created animation sequences to be shown on the screen for this years Boston Pops orchestra celebration with special guest John Williams. The orchestra plays the famous folk song “Charlie on the MTA” as Keith Lockhart finds his way through Boston’s subway system (now called the MBTA, or the T for short). I was excited to design these because I have always been interested in buses, trolleys, and trains. I designed a few animations that present the lyrics for sing along verses in a creative, fun way.
The popular PBS program “Fetch!” needed simplified maps created for use as props. Since the maps had to be readable on television, and featured unique points of interest, they had to be custom designed. I took on the challenge, and it was a very interesting project!
Even though each of the maps had fictional elements, they were all based on real geographical features like coastlines, topography, rivers, and roads. This was an issue because most commercial maps do not have the detail required for the small-scale rural areas depicted, and they would be too expensive for the limited budget available anyway. My solution was to use professional map-making software to manipulate freely available data, then export it into a graphics application where it could be cleaned up visually. The final product turned out to be well suited for its purpose, and several teams set out on a scavenger hunt using the maps as a guide.
The first map illustrates a network of hiking trails along the continental divide in Colorado. The second map features an area of the Florida keys, with points of interest on land and on/under water.
The popular PBS show Antiques Roadshow needed an updated look for it’s well known trunk icon. Bruce Walker – a motion graphics designer – and I developed an updated version of the well-known Antiques Roadshow trunk. We also created several animations for the series open, as well as still renderings for print materials, and web graphics.
Over the years I have created several other graphic elements for this wonderful series, and I have also worked on their photo databases using Filemaker software.
As an employee of WGBH I created this 3d rendering for a poster promoting an episode of the PBS science series NOVA entitled Cracking the Code of Life. The scene was then re rendered for use in a bookmark and as a general use promotional image. 3D modeling software is quite well suited for projects like this because a 3D scene can be re purposed for a variety of print materials by changing the camera vantage point or rearranging objects in 3D space to make a new composition without lots of additional work. This 3d scene has been used for dozens of printed pieces over the last few years. Many more scientific visualizations can be seen here.
