Video: Alexander Girard
He designed our future

“Alexander Girard” is an intimate look at an artist’s and designer’s life. Girard’s career runs through architecture and design, culminating on home interior and textiles. The documentary expounds upon the relationship with design that Girard developed as he worked in the Great Depression. He ended up pioneering innovative styles that shaped modernism in New York City. Before Girard’s work, modernism was very bland and uninviting, but he showed a colorful side to it. Dress Code in New York produced this video, imbibing the production with a sophisticated style with informative presentation of Girard’s history working at Herman Miller.
The video uses interviews and found footage to create a powerful story on Girard’s life and career. It functions as a commercial piece with creative production. The stunning soundtrack transports the viewer to the 1930s. An archivist at Herman Miller is interviewed about the artist. Girard’s signature saturated color style distinguishes his textile and design work. He applied his color schemes in the designs for Braniff Airlines’ planes. This brought sexy new life to the world of popular air travel. An apotheosis of his career came when he was commissioned to design a Latin restaurant located at the bottom of the Time & Light building.
Girard’s career and life in New York City was very successful, as this documentary proves. But its director James Casey does a unique job portraying and writing his story in a way that his accidental career in design manifests as a destiny of artistic genius. James Duffy does a remarkable job with editing, giving this video a fast pace and narrative path that is classy and smooth. With a beautiful voice over from Debra Kay Anderson and sound and music from YouTooCanWoo, the piece brings the viewer in to 20th Century America. It’s exciting and vibrant from start to finish. Check out this StaffPick of the Week from Vimeo to see the life and work of Alexander Girard.