A screen seems like an inappropriate medium to watch the work of Barcelona-based studio Dvein. A more suitable tool might be a high-powered microscope through which to watch the cellular-like structures bubbling, bursting, growing and swimming in undefined spaces, in work such as the opening titles for the 2006 OFFF and 2008 TOCA ME conferences and idents for Nat Geo’s Think Again campaign.

Moreover, if one were to imagine the organism that houses such structures, it might look like a mythical creature with “three minds and six hands”. Multi-faceted and multi-limbed: that’s the way that Dvein’s Teo Guillem, Fernando Dominguez and Carlos Pardo describe their collaboration.

The trio first met at the University of Valencia where Guillem and Dominguez studied Fine Arts and Pardo computer engineering. They would officially join forces as Dvein in 2006 armed with enough technical know-how to make wire frames and key frames submit to their vision, partly influenced by filmmakers like Tarantino and Truffaut, painters like Sorolla and Goya and mograph artists like Kyle Cooper and Danny Yount.

Their strength, they say, comes in their numbers. “When you work with more people that think like you the process is faster and better because you have other points of view that can increase the quality of the piece,” says Guillem. “Sometimes when you work alone and you make things that you aren’t that confident about, it’s better to have someone close to advise you.”

Aligning themselves less with the way most design and production studios function and more in the ways of an old workshop, Dvein collapses all notions of separate departments. There are no separate divisions for modeling, texturing, compositing etc. Each project receives the studio’s unified approach.

“We are three creatives; if needed we’ll create an [outside] team but a team that has our own personal vision of working on a project. If not, we can lose the point of view of what we are doing,” Dominguez explains. “We try to keep things simple to get complex results: instead of having a complex structure [we believe] processes should be simple to keep the workflow moving.”

While industry admirers describe Dvein’s work as organic and dark, they say their style is open to whatever is the best expression for each project. Indeed, the trio is looking to branch out into more live action to get closer to a film aesthetic.
“As individuals and as a collective the three of us have a lot of ideas in mind for the future,” offers Pardo. “We just need the moment or the right client to make them real.” Q 

> The artist on the art
“Flowing colors.”

www.dvein.com