Who would’ve thought the Adobe Illustrator workspace could be such a winning backdrop for Portishead? That aside, the hours of painstaking work and attention to detail that went into this beautiful piece by Brooklyn-based designer and illustrator Chad Pugh is inspired. In fact, it is this piece in particular that has helped in part to pave the way towards Vimeo‘s spotless interface and login illustration that we get to enjoy today. Commissioning the redesign earlier this year, the Vimeo team fronted by Jakob Lodwick and Zach Klein sought the expertise of the man whose portfolio has provided front-end output for the likes of Janet Jackson and Bon Jovi at the Fearless Concepts studio, and the success has been tremendous both for the site in terms of user feedback as well as for Pugh’s own career success. And seeing as I’ve spoken out considerably against YouTube‘s seeming lack of attention to image and general operation strategy in recent times (inevitably more to come soon), it goes without saying that a site like Vimeo provides much relief to the black-and-white eyesore that can be added to Twitter’s ‘#gfail‘ rap sheet.
Pugh’s filming of his Science Machine rendering in timelapse over several months totals approximately forty hours of working in depth on the elements featured in his landscape, with a screenshot taken every five seconds. Trimming the eighteen-minute total down to seven, it was set to Portishead‘s ‘We Carry On’ track (Third, 2008) for full dramatic effect. A truly incredible thing to behold when you know how much drive it takes to complete an illustration like this for personal enjoyment. And it’s obvious that that enjoyment has translated into Pugh’s work with Vimeo. On the two projects, he has said that ‘before working in-house at Vimeo I provided their login page illustration, which is used throughout the site in many different forms. It was inspired from some other personal illustration work I had just started pursuing and can be found at my store for purchase. I then had the opportunity to work with the staff on-site. Most of my time was spent exploring ideas for the sites interface, new sections, product branding and other features. My life has changed a lot since I started this.’
Unsurprisingly, the largest two prints are already sold-out. However ‘Afloat’ is still available, and it’s well worth checking back later at the The Big Pugh store to see if more becomes available.
Sarah Badr © MMIX
See also: Speed painting (piece at random)
sarah badr | pieces at random 
Chad’s work is second to none. Keep makin it happen cap’n!