Annie Atkins

Last updated

Annie Atkins is a American graphic designer and prop maker for film and television. She is known for her graphic design work in The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) and has gone on to work with director Wes Anderson on Isle of Dogs (2018) and The French Dispatch (2021).

Contents

Early life

Atkins grew up in Dolwyddelan in Northern Wales. Her mother was an artist and her father a graphic designer. [1] Atkins graduated with a degree in visual communications from Ravensbourne University London. [2] [3] After graduation, she worked as an art director in the advertising agency McCann-Erickson in Reykjavík, Iceland. [2] [4] In 2007, she enrolled in University College Dublin's [5] master in film production program after losing enthusiasm for her work at McCann-Erickson, saying “I thought I’d leave design completely, that I’d study film and be a camera operator or a technician, and then I found this whole other world of design.” [2]

Career

After graduating from University College Dublin, she worked as a designer on the third season of the BBC costume drama The Tudors in 2007. As the role was broadly defined, she had varying responsibilities, such as working as a stonemason, signwriter and scribe, and prop maker. After The Tudors, Atkins remained in Dublin and bounced around film jobs. [2] [3] [6]

Atkins was lead graphic designer on The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014). The film won the Academy Award for Best Production Design at the 87th Academy Awards. [7]

Atkins worked on her first video game project, "That's You!", in 2018. [8]

She teaches workshops out of her studio in Dublin, Ireland. [3] [9]

Filmography

Television

TitleNotes
The Tudors [3]
Camelot [10]
Titanic: Blood and Steel [11]
Vikings [11]
Penny Dreadful [12]

Film

YearTitleNotes
2014 The Boxtrolls [2]
2014 The Grand Budapest Hotel [2]
2015 Bridge of Spies [2]
2016 Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk [13]
2018 Isle of Dogs [2]
2021 The French Dispatch [1]
2021 West Side Story [1]

Bibliography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Designers Republic</span> British graphic design studio

The Designers Republic is a British graphic design studio based in Sheffield, England, founded in 1986 by Ian Anderson and Nick Phillips. They are best known for electronic music logos, album artwork, and anti-establishment aesthetics, embracing "brash consumerism and the uniform style of corporate brands". Work by tDR is held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wes Anderson</span> American filmmaker (born 1969)

Wesley Wales Anderson is an American filmmaker. His films are known for their eccentricity, unique visual and narrative styles, and frequent use of ensemble casts. They often contain themes of grief, loss of innocence, and dysfunctional families. Some critics cite Anderson as an auteur. Three of his films have appeared in BBC Culture's 2016 poll of the greatest films since 2000.

In film and television, production designer is the individual responsible for the overall aesthetic of the story. The production design gives the viewers a sense of the time period, the plot location, and character actions and feelings. Working directly with the director, cinematographer, and producer, production designers have a key creative role in the creation of motion pictures and television. The term production designer was coined by William Cameron Menzies while he was working on the film Gone with the Wind. Production designers are commonly confused with art directors as the roles have similar responsibilities. Production designers decide the visual concept and deal with the many and varied logistics of filmmaking including, schedules, budgets, and staffing. Art directors manage the process of making the visuals, which is done by concept artists, graphic designers, set designers, costume designers, lighting designers, etc. The production designer and the art director lead a team of individuals to assist with the visual component of the film. Depending on the size of the production the rest of the team can include runners, graphic designers, drafts people, props makers, and set builders. Productions Designers create a framework for the visual aesthetic of a project and work in partnership and collaboration with the Set Decorator & Set Decorating department to execute the desired look.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eiko Ishioka</span> Japanese artist and costume designer (1938-2012)

Eiko Ishioka was a Japanese art director, costume designer, and graphic designer known for her work in stage, screen, advertising, and print media.

Ann Dinah Ovenden is a British fine artist and a founder member of the Brotherhood of Ruralists. She is a figurative artist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Milena Canonero</span> Italian costume designer (born 1946)

Milena Canonero is an Italian costume designer. In a career spanning over five decades, she is recognized for her prolific work across stage and screen. She has received numerous accolades, including four Academy Awards, three BAFTA Awards, and two Costume Designers Guild Awards.

George Elliott Olden was an American graphic designer who worked in television and advertising. Working at CBS, Olden helped to create the visual identities of shows such as Gunsmoke, I Love Lucy, and Lassie. In 1963, Olden became the first African-American to design a postage stamp, creating a design commemorating the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation. Olden was an AIGA medal-winning graphic designer, and a Japanese magazine, Idea, once listed him among the top fifteen designers in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barbara Baska</span>

Barbara Baska is a graphic designer and cinematographer.

John Lewis (1912–1996) was a Welsh typographer, printer, illustrator and collector of printed ephemera.

<i>The Grand Budapest Hotel</i> 2014 film by Wes Anderson

The Grand Budapest Hotel is a 2014 comedy-drama film written, directed, and co-produced by Wes Anderson. Ralph Fiennes leads a seventeen-actor ensemble cast as Monsieur Gustave H., famed concierge of a twentieth-century mountainside resort in the fictional Eastern European country of Zubrowka. When Gustave is framed for the murder of a wealthy dowager, he and his recently befriended protégé Zero embark on a quest for fortune and a priceless Renaissance painting amidst the backdrop of an encroaching fascist regime. Anderson's American Empirical Pictures produced the film in association with Studio Babelsberg, Fox Searchlight Pictures, and Indian Paintbrush's Scott Rudin and Steven Rales. Fox Searchlight supervised the commercial distribution, and The Grand Budapest Hotel's funding was sourced through Indian Paintbrush and German government-funded tax rebates.

Matt Zoller Seitz is an American film and television critic, author and filmmaker.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tony Revolori</span> American actor (born 1996)

Anthony Revolori is an American actor. He is best known for his collaborations with Wes Anderson starring in The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), The French Dispatch (2021), and Asteroid City (2023) and for portraying Flash Thompson in the Marvel Cinematic Universe films Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019), and Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021).

Adam Stockhausen is an American production designer known for his collaborations with Wes Anderson, Steven Spielberg, and Steve McQueen. He's received four nominations for the Academy Award for Best Production Design, winning for The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014).

Rosalind Dallas was a British graphic designer

Judy Kensley McKie is an American artist, furniture designer, and furniture maker. She has been making her signature style of furniture with carved and embellished animal and plant motifs since 1977. She is based in Boston, Massachusetts.

<i>Thats You!</i> 2017 video game

That's You! is a 2017 party game developed by Wish Studios and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. The game is a PlayStation 4 exclusive and was the inaugural title of Sony's audience-widening PlayLink range.

<i>Boy with Apple</i> 2012 painting by Michael Taylor

Boy with Apple is a 21st-century painting by British artist Michael Taylor. Painted on commission for use as a prop in Wes Anderson's 2014 film, The Grand Budapest Hotel, the fictional backstory written for Boy with Apple played a major role in the film's plot.

Anne Quito is a design reporter and architecture critic based in New York City. A former reporter at Quartz, she is also the founding director of Design Lab, the in-house design team for Family Health International (FHI). In 2017, Quito won the inaugural Steven Heller Prize for Cultural Commentary from the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA). In 2018, a story she co-authored received a silver medal in the Malofiej Infographic Awards.

<i>The Grand Budapest Hotel</i> (soundtrack) 2014 soundtrack album by Alexandre Desplat

The Grand Budapest Hotel: Original Soundtrack is the soundtrack album composed by Alexandre Desplat for the 2014 film The Grand Budapest Hotel directed by Wes Anderson. The 32-track album was released on March 4, 2014, through ABKCO Records, produced by Anderson along with music supervisor Randall Poster. Unlike their previous ventures, the soundtrack to this film did not feature contemporary pop hits due to the classical roots of the film's music.

Aradhana Seth is an Indian art director, artist, production designer and filmmaker who has worked in the Hindi film industry as well as for Hollywood productions like Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited, London Has Fallen and The Bourne Supremacy. As an artist, Seth has exhibited her works at Chemould Prescott Road Gallery, Grosvenor Gallery, KHOJ New Delhi. Seth also produced the 2020 BBC adaptation of her brother, Vikram Seth's novel A Suitable Boy. She is based in Goa, India.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 O’Sullivan, John-Michael (25 January 2020). "From fake maps to golden tickets: the film props of artist Annie Atkins". the Guardian. Retrieved 20 March 2022.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 ""Imagination doesn't compare to our real life design history": Annie Atkins on the art of graphic design for film". www.itsnicethat.com. Retrieved 20 March 2022.
  3. 1 2 3 4 "On the Corner of Film and Design with Annie Atkins". Communication Arts. 4 June 2018. Retrieved 20 March 2022.
  4. "Artist Spotlight: Annie Atkins was a graphic designer behind The French Dispatch and The Grand Budapest Hotel". District Magazine. 16 December 2021. Retrieved 20 March 2022.
  5. Jenkins, Tom (4 July 2014). "Grand Designs: Annie Atkins". Port Magazine. Retrieved 9 December 2023.
  6. "Introducing Annie Atkins". Breed. 31 May 2021. Retrieved 20 March 2022.
  7. "Meet Annie Atkins, the Graphic Designer Working With Wes Anderson". Wix Playground | Design Blog | Design Culture. 6 August 2018. Retrieved 20 March 2022.
  8. Wiltshire, Alex (1 February 2018). "How a Wes Anderson movie prop maker helped develop That's You!". Game Developer. Retrieved 25 March 2022.
  9. "Annie Atkins Writes New Book About Designing Graphic Props for Filmmaking". Art Departmental. 18 October 2019. Retrieved 20 March 2022.
  10. "Wes Anderson's graphic designer Annie Atkins on designing the past and ensuring future talent in the field". Digital Arts. Retrieved 20 March 2022.
  11. 1 2 "How Wes Anderson's intricately designed props bring his films to life". British GQ. 11 March 2020. Retrieved 20 March 2022.
  12. Dawood, Sarah (25 March 2015). "Annie Atkins and the "secret world" of film graphics". Design Week. Retrieved 20 March 2022.
  13. Boyd-Wallis, Rebecca (16 April 2015). "meet annie atkins, graphic designer of the grand budapest hotel's empire of zubrowka". i-D. Retrieved 20 March 2022.