Showstudio — Case Study

Helping SHOWstudio show off, where art meets interface

In the late 2000s I spent several weeks at Nick Knight and Peter Saville’s newly formed SHOWstudio, contributing interface designs for experimental digital projects. My work focused on creating immersive, exploratory user experiences — most notably for Brian Dowling’s Essay: Fire and Peter Saville’s Waste Painting — where art and interface combined to give audiences a new way of navigating and feeling the work.

Please note: When I edit these showreel examples I obviously highlight my own art direction, animation and motion design contributions but that certainly doesn't mean that I am entirely responsible for every visual shown. I have been fortunate to collaborate with many exceptionally talented colleagues — those that I can recall at the time of writing are listed below:

FIRE — SHOWstudio

SHOWstudio commissioned me to design an interactive, immersive roaming user interface to present Brian Dowling’s Essay: Fire. The brief was to move beyond static image presentation and instead create a way for the audience to feel as if they were wandering through the rooms alongside Brian in the aftermath of the fire. The navigation was deliberately fluid and exploratory, encouraging users to discover details at their own pace—mirroring the act of moving through a real, disrupted domestic space.

My approach was to strip the design back to its essentials so the photography could speak with maximum impact. Subtle transitions, atmospheric pacing, and an intuitive roaming layout gave the project a contemplative rhythm, guiding the viewer but never forcing them. The result is an experience that feels more like inhabiting a memory than browsing a gallery, allowing users to uncover both the devastation and intimacy in Brian’s documentation of his mother’s home.

Fergadelic — SHOWstudio

Fergus Purcell is an illustrator who styles the aesthetic of his work to resemble that of his favourite pop culture influences of The Ramones, The Runaways, The MC5 and the artwork of Jack Kirkby, Moebius and Guido Crepax.

The animation was art directed by Paul Hetherington and initially keyframed by Samuel Roberts. I brought it all together with ActionScript and added the audio which is by Duck Hair Back and Lady Ninotchka.

Peter Saville's Waste Paintings — SHOWstudio

SHOWstudio commissioned me to design an immersive user interface to present Peter Saville’s Waste Painting series. These digitally “recycled” compositions were grounded in Saville’s history as a designer closely associated with New Order and Factory Records, effectively repurposing elements from prior works—many originally intended as New Order artwork—to create something entirely new. Central to the design was the idea of transformation: seamlessly guiding users through these layered, filtered images with transitions and interactions that mirrored the unpredictable and arbitrary process of creation itself— much like a Photoshop filter applied and halted just at the precise moment of resonance

Out of the Ordinary — SHOWstudio

While at Nick Knight and Peter Saville’s newly formed SHOWstudio in the late 2000s, I worked on the interactive presentation of Out of the Ordinary by photographer David Weightman. The project celebrated the overlooked beauty of everyday objects, and my role was to design an interface that encouraged users to explore the series as if uncovering hidden details for themselves. By keeping the navigation minimal and the pacing intuitive, the design gave Weightman’s photographs room to resonate, aligning with SHOWstudio’s vision of fusing art, fashion, and technology through digital experimentation.

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