://Amy
Franceschini
Futurefarmer's founding member, Amy Franceschini
was born to a farming family and grew up amid the fields and orchards
of California's San Joaquin Valley. She graduated from San Francisco State
University in 1992 with a BFA in photography and interned at Photo Metro,
a monthly photography publication, where she was introduced to computer
graphics and design. In 1994, she enrolled in the California College of
Arts and Crafts design program. In
the summer of 1995, she formed a partnership with Olivier Laude and Michael
Macrone, founders of Atlas
(www.atlasmagazine.com), an online magazine. Since that time, Atlas has garnered numerous awards
for its dramatic and unorthodox approach to online publishing and design.
In 1997, the Atlas website was selected as the first
to be included in the permanent collection of the San Francisco Museum
of Modern Art. The site has won two
Webby awards (the equivalent of an online Oscar) for Art and Design, and
has won many other online and publication design awards.
In 1995, she also started Futurefarmers. It's first years harvest proved to be quite prolific. First with Switch Manufacturing's highly aclaimed collateral and print catalog (see communication arts 01/97). Next, "Flesh Farmer", a multimedia CO-lab in "Dig It: Digital Art and the Next Generation", a digital show co-curated by Thomas Bonavich of Postmasters Gallery, NYC and Limn Gallery, SF and most recently being nominated for Bay Area Now II.
This balance between art and commerce pushes her to continually rethink her craft while striving to transcend both.