Interview: designers are increasingly making films instead of products to get their ideas across, according to Studio Swine, which has won multiple awards for its movies (+ movie).
Co-founder Alex Groves believes that his London-based studio's movies, which have been lauded at Cannes film festival and picked up by National Geographic, are part of a wider trend for designers creating professional-standard documentaries as part of their work.
"Increasingly companies are working with designers for PR rather than to make a mass-produced product, so they're looking to designers to be 'designers of mass communication' rather than 'designers of mass production'," he told Dezeen. "Dezeen ran a story recently about Ikea saying there's too much stuff... but films are free of that baggage." Studio Swine's Terraforming film depicts a crystal planet that has been discovered in the galaxy
From established names like the Bouroullec brothers to students and recent graduates, a swathe of designers are all using movies to better explain and promote their ideas and products.
"There's a lot more design film than ever before," said Groves. "It's a really exciting area of design at the moment."

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He believes that improvements in digital SLR cameras are partly behind the increase in design films. Designers can create high-quality films themselves with very littl...