Maddie Dai

11 Paper Place is a love story about two 8.5 x 11 sheets of paper that magically transform into paper people as they are spit out of a malfunctioning printer into a recycling bin. It was made by a collaborative team faculty and undergraduate students striving to tell a three-part story about birth, love, and death.

I worked as the Art Director, designer and 3D modeler on this project. This included story design and art, character and set modeling and lighting work, as well as advising a team of undergraduate students alongside film director Daniel Houghton

Today, we are witnessing the highest levels of displacement the world has ever seen. An unprecedented 65.3 million people globally have been forced from home – among them are nearly 21.3 million refugees, over half of whom are children. Many are fleeing war or persecution in their homeland and will never return.

Refugees Welcome is an effort led by UNICEF global, Purpose and other partners to bring folks from refugee and non-refugee backgrounds around a table to break bread and break barriers. For a taste of what these gatherings are like, check out www.refugeeswelcometodinner.com.

Since launching on February 14 we have held dinners in town and cities across the US including Boise, Provo, Seattle, Potomac, Charlottesville, San Diego, NYC, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Our simple tool-kit makes it easy for anyone to host a dinner with conversation starters, nametags and sign-in sheets for the table.

The Olympics are the world's most-watched global event: the 2016 games created more than 30 billion viewing hours of broadcast television, with an opening ceremony watched by upwards of one billion people.

With the announcement of the first Refugee Olympic Team in history, we saw a huge opportunity to educate and inspire a new, mainstream audience around the refugee crisis through an unexpected lens, the universal appeal of sport. 

Partnering with UNHCR and UNICEF, we created campaign that humanized the refugee experience and educate the growing fan base about the refugee experience beyond Rio.

We wanted to create a brand that felt like it emerged organically from the fan base; a dynamic, youthful, and vivid portrayal of the enthusiasm and passion refugees bring to our communities. 

I worked as an illustrator with Art Director Guyang Chen on an infographic explaining the impact of the BP oil spill five years later. The infographic was made for NRDC and onEarth. Winner of the 2015 Communications Arts Advertising Annual for public service.

Art Director: Guyang Chen

A collection of work for Airbnb to highlight their sustainability success, small village restoration projects in Italy, and to welcome visitors to Paris!

I made this poster for my good friend Josh Swartz, who produces a podcast called Bandwagon. The show is about being part of something bigger than yourself.
 

Each season follows the followers of a different type of bandwagon. Through intimate, sound-rich narratives, we meet the characters behind popular (and often surprising) cultural phenomena.

 When the podcast moved in another direction we discarded this style. Click here listen to podcast, and to see the visual style we landed on, which allowed me to explore some detailed pen and ink art.

Campaign Content

From minimum wage to maternity leave, defining what makes a “good job” in America today is no easy task. Workshift was created to spark a national conversation around job quality—just in time for Labor Day—with a traveling installation at its center to ensure voices were heard from coast to coast.

Art Director: Rebecca Hume

This campaign aimed to end Poland's reliance on coal, by preventing the opening of new coal mines and supporting renewable energy. The first stage of this project was a divestment campaign. Encouraging a vision of self reliance and national pride, I adapted the eagle on the Polish coat of arms to a widely applicable symbol of the new and sustainable future of Poland. 

Just some fun. 

In anticipation of COP21, we imagined a world where cities across the world committed to renewable energy. I created these drawings, where some of the most famous buildings across the world are powered by sun and wind. 

Our team needed some illustrations to organize our department. Creativity counters chaos!

The Collinwood Fire is an animated short film multi-media platform for nonfiction storytelling about the Lakeview School fire in Collinwood, Ohio. On March 4, 1908, flames tore through the building, trapping many of the roughly 350 people in it. 172 children, two teachers, and one rescuer died.

I worked on this project as a set designer and 3D modeler, beginning with concept drawings based on archival documents, and ultimately constructing them using the program Blender. 

To learn more about this movie and the fire it depicts visit collinwoodfire.org/

Director: Daniel Houghton

I worked as a content creator with The Solutions Project, a national nonprofit organization working to accelerate the transition to 100% clean, renewable energy for all people and purposes.

It was an opportunity to bring out the best of New York, so we engaged a wide range of mediums: temporary tattoos, stickers, garden parties, rallies, social graphics... whatever it takes to build a cleaner city!

A collection of stop motion and motion graphics projects for a range of clients, including World Animal Protection, See Now and We Raise New Jersey

A selection of wedding invitations I've done. 

We Raise New Jersey

New Jersey's adoption of Common Core education standards and new standardized tests spelled big changes for anyone with school-age kids. We Raise NJ was developed in partnership with the New Jersey PTA to ensure that parent voices remain part of the statewide conversation, speaking up for forward-thinking policies that let students soar.

Art Director: Rebecca Hume