Joshua Davis Joshua Davis is an interactive designer and artist who embraces
computer programming constructs and constraints to direct Paula Scher
In Brief Based in New York Originally from Colorado Runs his own solo firm: Joshua Davis Studios
Pioneered Flash design in the late 1990’s
Inspired by skateboard culture and tattoos
his highly experimental work. An avid technologist since the mid 90’s, Davis helped pioneer the Flash movement in motion design, having authored Flash to the Core in 2002. His design work centers on the randomization within a controlled loop or environment. This “chaos theory” in his work has paved new territory in a previously uncharted realm of design, and has led him to work for many diverse clients, ranging from BMW to the rock band Tool. He is a professor of computer art at New York’s School of Visual Arts and a recurring lecturer for many design and technology conferences, which have taken him all over the world, including the Rovereto festival in Italy, TYPO in Berlin, OFFF in Lisbon, and FIND in Sao Paulo. Davis developed a cult following from websites he hosted in the late 90’s, including Praystation, where he presented open-source code for his designs and experimental Flash projects, Dreamless, which was a an online forum for many web designers and programmers, and Once Upon a Forest, where he exhibited his personal progression in digital art. Davis still maintains a solo studio in New York, outsourcing to a cast of outside collaborators for larger projects when needed.
“I feel like I don’t grow as a designer unless I make mistakes. And if I’m not making mistakes, then I’m not learning anything.”