Hillman Curtis

Hillman Curtis

David Hillman Curtis (born 1961 in LaJolla, CA) is an American new media designer, author, and filmmaker. Curtis is the Principal and Chief Creative Officer of hillmancurtis.com, inc., a digital design and film production firm in New York City. Previously, he was design director for Macromedia. He has published four books on new media design which have sold over 150 thousand copies and been translated into 14 languages.

Curtis was listed by the Internet Professional Publisher Association in its DesignerONE awards for 2001-2002 as one of the top ten web designers.[1] He has designed sites for Yahoo, Adobe Systems, Metropolitan Opera and others .[2]. Canoë magazine called him le pape du Flash (the Pope of Flash) in 2000.[3] Glide magazine labels him the "Michael Jordan of web design".[4]

Hillman was nominated for the Copper Hewlett National Design Award in 2009.

As a filmmaker he first gained notoriety with his online "Artist Series" — short documentaries on designers/artists including Milton Glaser, Paula Scher, David Carson, Stefan Sagmeister, James Victore, Pentagram Design Group, and the filmmaker Mark Romanek. He also has made several short dramatic films and has filmed national commercials for IBM and Blackberry, as well as commercial web content for Sprint, Bobbi Brown Cosmetics, SVA, Rolling Stone and many others.

In 2008, Curtis made a short documentary for the David Byrne and Brian Eno album Everything That Happens Will Happen Today and later directed the feature length documentary Ride, Rise, Roar which chronicled the Songs of David Byrne and Brian Eno Tour. Ride Rise Roar opened at South by Southwest to positive reviews, premiered on 50 screens in the UK and is currently awaiting completion of a domestic distribution deal stateside.

Curtis first came to prominence as one of the principal songwriters and bassists for the new wave group "Mrs. Green", which was formed while Curtis was attending San Francisco State University. The group recorded one album and toured the U.K. They toured briefly with the New Zealand band The Chills. Later Curtis split off from the band and formed the Greenthings and landed a lucrative contract from MCA records, which unfortunately resulted in a failed record, forever to be shelved in the vast basement of MCA in Los Angeles. He currently is at work on new features and commercials from his studio in Brooklyn, NY. With this Curtis stopped pursuing music and turned to digital design, eventually landing in the Art Director role at Macromedia which developed Flash as well as other software. He left in 1997 to start hillmancurtis, Inc a design firm in Downtown New York City. He still runs hillmancurtis, Inc, though it is much more a film production studio from his studio in Brooklyn, NY. He currently resides with his wife and two children in Brooklyn, NY.

Bibliography

  • Hillman Curtis on Creating Short Films for the Web, (New Riders Publishing: August, 2005)
  • MTIV: Process, Inspiration and Practice for the New Media Designer, (New Riders Publishing: May, 2002)
  • Flash Web Design: The V5 Remix, (New Riders Publishing: March 2001)
  • Flash Web Design: The Art of Motion Graphics, (New Riders Publishing: March 2000)

External links


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