Name:
Amy Franceschini

Age:
(do i have to disclose? born 1970. hows that :) )

Location:
San Franciso, palo alto

URL/s:
www.futurefarmers.com, www.nutrishnia.org, www.communiculture.org, www.desktoppatterns.com, www.atlasmagazine.com

Could you tell us a little about Future Farmers: what you do, who you all are, etc...:
Futurefarmers has become a complex weave of fine fibres, none of which ever are completely connected, but create a mesh landscape of overlapping paths. Futurefarmers started as an alias for me in 1995. I had been designing Atlas
magazine , and got a bit of stage fright when started getting recognition. I didn't start designing Atlas with thoughts of getting any attention, and when it did, i think it took us all by surprise (myself and my partners Michael Macrone, and Olivier Laude). Everytime i designed a new issue, i felt more and more pressure to "out do" myself. This is not a bad quality, but it can be quite paralyzing. Anyway. I started futurefarmers as a back door area to do weird experiments for myself. it was not intended for any audience really. It was really un-self conscious. I was interested in the future of agriculture at the time and was posting facts i was learning in my research and the research of others. Futurefarmers started to gain attention via Atlas, and the trouble all began again. I now hide under other alias'. Our first major client was in collaboration with Atlas. We worked with Lucasfilm doing most of the Episode 1 web presence. At that time i also started an artist in residence program. The first resident was sascha merg (www.sas21.de). He came and worked with me for 6 months.During that time we started Nutrishnia and published a cdrom together with Airking. Futurefarmers is a natural system it is always changing and flowing with whatever is happening. At the moment Josh On and I are the foundation here in San Francisco, but we work closely with Sascha Merg (programmer/
collaborator) in hamburg, Michael Swaine/Corrugated Yam (inventor, fabricator), and Richard Mortimer Humphrey (electronics, programming, junkyard aquisition agent).

Futurefarmers has always been seen as a leader in the underground design scene even though it is a company and has worked for some major corporations, how and why do you think you have kept this underground following?
That is a funny question. I think keeping Futurefarmers small has probably saved us. It is not easy to stay small. Several times we could have easily turned into 15-20 people, but then all we would have been doing is management. I think we have really made an effort to staying true to our love for making things. I think our work may draw attention because it is not always clear what is going on. I hope that our work can transcend people to some place they have not been before. i don't know if we succeed, but we try. I hope to make people laugh. Maybe one thing that has kept us "underground" (i feel funny saying that) is that none of us come from a "design" background. most everyone i have worked with would rather look at mud than graphic design. hmm... I mean...i guess they really are the same.

Do you find your corporate work enjoyable, or do you think you can only truly enjoy making personal designs:
of course i enjoy making person projects over doing corporate work, but i have a very anal side that enjoys solving problems and designing systems. sometimes it is easier to be organized for other people and i always learn something from clients that i can apply to my personal style or concepts. Renny Pritikin, curator at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco once wrote this: "Amy Franceschini is a new media artist, and founder of Futurefarmers. Since 1994, she has co-founded, Atlas (www.atlasmagazine.com), an online magazine, and produced several online projects both commercial and non-commercial. Amy's work is if not the first, is in the vanguard of taking the internet to the next step. She makes amazing, hilarious, clever, intelligent use of that entire new medium not to generate stock options but rather to stock up on weapons with which to critique the social and ecological implications of the very technological capitalism in which it participates and from which it emerges. Within the next 5 years Amy intends to be living on an alternative, communal farm and working remotely, thus the name of her company:Futurefarmers:cultivating your conscience.
-Renny Pritikin, Chief Curator, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

Future Farmers has a unique visual style, do you see this changing at all or will you continue to push the current look:
I am very tired of "looks". when i see a very simple design or lots of open space, i am usually relieved. Maybe it parallels my current state of mind living in the city. I yearn to be in the country and surrounded by empty rolling hills. i visit a small town north of San Francisco often to retreat, and when i see
an open field i feel much the same as when i see a page an almost blank page in a magazine. i try to change my style, but it is hard to move on. I am doing alot of physical artwork these days and reading. I think the physical work is
influencing how i think about web design. i am designing a new site right now for futurefarmers, maybe it is new?

How did the Farmers style develop:
i really think my style developed parallel to my computer skills. I always had visions in my head, but until i learned how to competently use software, i couldn't get the images out. I think a lot of my style is the product of the limitations of the software i use. For instance, the 3d characters i make always have a wood-toy like quality when they animate. this is a result of Infini-d not being the best software to do 3d animation in. It is very labourious to get characters limns to move smoothly. but i delt with it, and i actually like the motion i get better than the seamless movement that comes with high end 3d software. there is something imperfect about it that i like. i tend to like imperfections. in fact i love people who have messed up teeth!

As one of the leading female designers on the web how do you feel about the the male dominance that we see at the moment:
I don't feel adverse to the number of men. I don't like to think of it as a 'MAN' / 'WOMAN' issue. I just find it strange that there are not more ninja girls out there. I think the web lends a sort of gender anonymity that should remedy this situation.

Do you think this had affected your designs:
NO.

Future Farmers inspires a lot of designers, where do you guys seek inspiration:
i seek inspiration from my friends, architecture, but mostly from nature. i like to look at movement and systems of movement/ organized movement. my father was an industrial designer and spent his spare time painting stripes and lettering on the sides of his tractors and his motorcross bikes.
i really think he influenced me more than i know. In the 70's he painted a huge red question mark on the hood of his yellow Chevy side step truck. This really threw a loop into the little farming community we lived in.

Do you have any new projects coming up soon that you can tell us about:
well we are finishing up Communiculture for Sydney. It is a project we have been working on for over a year. I am really excited to get it online and inline. I am also working on some clothing for year 2002-very simple. I also have an exhibition in San Francisco this summer that i am working towards.
Josh is working on THEY RULE- to be released next month. look for it! I am working on a product/gadget to debut june 2002, but i think it may be a one of a kind. :)

What do you know about Australian design/designers:
honestly, i don't know anything about australia. i met some nice folks in hong kong that resonate with me: jade and andrew :)

Any final comments:
Art is a verb! Do it!