Mike Perry: The Joy and Power of Collaboration
The one and only Mike Perry is front of the new Hermés boutique on Madison Avenue. Image c/o Hermés.
The animated window display for the new Hermés boutique on Madison Avenue has everything you might see on a New York City city block, and then some. There are the yellow 3D-printed taxis; purple, orange, and green skyscrapers; blue and purple horses galloping past, and birds wearing the fashion house’s signature scarves. As for scale, the buildings are purposefully small, and the birds huge. “Ridiculous,” wrote someone on Instagram. “I love it.”
This joyful, kinetic spirit could have only come from one person: Brooklyn-based, Emmy-winning artist Mike Perry, who is responsible for the motion design on Broad City, among other colorful, playful works. For the new Hermés boutique opening, Perry designed everything from the semi-permanent window to the grand opening, one-night-only musical visual universe “Love Around the Block.” For the musical he had his hand in every visual element, from over 100 posters that covered the block to large-scale graphics that covered the street to street signs, outfit graphics, and a million other details that you had to be there to see. In addition to the musical and the window he worked with Publicis to delevelop the ad campaign that took over New York City from a giant digital billboard at JFK airport to the back cover ofThe New Yorker andThe New York Times print and digital ads, more than 300 pieces in all.
For the Hermés window Perry collaborated with his longtime technical partner Isam Prado who he collaborated with to develop the diorama-esque window world, as well as the team from Spacecraft who printed, produced, and installed the piece.
Here, Perry shares how the project of this size and scope came to be, what it’s like to partner with Hermés and his many collaborators, and why horses (yes, horses) are some of the hardest things to draw.
One of Perry’s work-in-progress digital sketches; the brief was to incorporate animation into the window, while capturing the essence of New York City. Image: Mike Perry.
When Hermés came to you, what did the brief look like? Very detailed, or more open-ended?
They wanted a window that was alive and they liked that I work in both animation and in physical spaces. That was basically the brief: How do we incorporate animation into a window? And it has to do with the city in some respect. The window is supposed to be a gift to the street, something that people walk by and feel excited about. The open brief was exciting for me as a maker.
How do your ideas start to flow?
I draw all the time, and I think with my pencil or pen. It’s helpful for my brain to work that way. I proposed a couple of one-liner ideas, and they loved the one that was the city block. So I drew a fake window and was like, this would be cool. And this would be cool. And what about this? Then, for the animation, I made a word list of things that I thought could happen in the window.
Hermés loves horses in the brand, and I’m going through a bit of a horse phase myself, so it felt serendipitous to try to figure out how to get as many horses in there as possible. Once the drawings were done, Isam took the drawing into the 3D world and built the wireframes to see how these would fit into the window. The team at Spacecraft has this device that you put in a space and it maps the whole room with lasers. You can get a 3D file of the space.
What sparked your horse phase?
I'm a huge animal person. I have a dog that I care deeply about and humans have traditionally had relationships with dogs and horses. There are not many animals that are as present in the world of humans as dogs and horses, so I wondered, If I had a horse would I have the same bond with this giant creature?
Horses are also hard to draw. They have weird skeletal structures and ways their legs move and bend. I think everyone thinks that they can draw a horse and then they try to draw it and you're like, It's just not right. Horses have been on my list of animals that I want to explore conceptually. They are a fun challenge. I've drawn my dog so many times that I got dogs down in any pose. But I'm still working on the horse and the challenge of it being something that I don't know how to make just yet gives me joy.
Perry’s early drafts included pencil sketches like the above. Image: Mike Perry.
A side view from one of Perry’s pencil sketch drafts. Image: Mike Perry.
The characters being sketched out by Perry. Image: Mike Perry.
How do you think both artistically and logistically about how something like this will work?
We had conversations about the logistics upfront. Hermés has a team of installers and technical creatives that are there to help facilitate the challenges of these installs (Spacecraft). There are some fun, crazy technical aspects to this kind of thing, like you have to make sure that the air is vented so the heat doesn’t overload the pieces. All of the things that move have motors, so you have to test all the motors to make sure that they have the power when you hit play. It was a huge technical undertaking. Between our team, the production team, and three animators working to bring the windows to life, we had at least 15 people working on it.
From a creative perspective, when do you know a project like this is done?
The window was done on my side ages before it was installed so it could be built and tested. We had so many deliverables and everything needed production time so it all had to be done so it could be built and printed ahead of time. Deadlines are great because you know when something has to be done. It has to be done by tomorrow? Boom, it's done. You have no choice.
For the musical part of this, I needed to make 90 posters, and they had to be different sizes because they needed to fit into different windows. For that, I put on an audiobook and sat at my desk all day and worked on the posters, pulled the bleeds, and got everything ready. Those kinds of days are productive, but they're not necessarily creative days. It’s challenging in a different way.
Mike Perry has a delightful colorful style all his own. Image: Hermés
Hermés is a mega client. Did you feel lots of pressure?
No, it was very chill. The biggest thing I was nervous about was putting my suit on to go to the opening night party.
What makes a collaboration worthwhile?
I'm always excited by the power of collaborations and what can happen when people with different skill sets can come together to try to execute an idea. It’s always enriching and the window itself was such a magical thing to make because so many people came together to make it. That’s such a joy.
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