starwipe, star bright

My first ever Weeklies™ was also the last CVW Starwipe Collective–a themed in-house production challenge–for the next four years.

Beginning in 2011, Starwipe Collective regularly took place several times each year, with themes ranging from the technical (soft-body dynamics) to the more abstract (“black & white”). Everyone who wanted to participate could make whatever they wanted, so long as it fit within the theme and allotted time budget. It was created to hold space for projects that were fun for fun’s sake and allowed us to flex our creativity without any restrictions.

“Starwipe was all about finding new ways to approach a project,” says Micah, whose favorite theme (“build-up/break-down”) resulted in him modeling out a lightsaber (the dream, for most of us here). It’s an opportunity to try new things and to make animated logos of our favorite sports teams, as Jordan did back in 2014 for the San Diego Padres.

“CVW did a lot of restructuring in 2010, including the addition of a dedicated project manager—me—and several new production staff members and moving into our current location from a more divided office in another part of town,” says Becky. “Once all that dust settled, we were ready to push our new team boundaries frequently and in ways we hadn’t been able to before. Thanks to a Simpsons joke I didn’t know about at the time, Starwipe Collective was born. After a few rounds, our client work sort of exploded in a way that made it hard for us to do the thing regularly, so it turned into a once-in-a-while exercise.”

Cut to a couple of months ago, and the reorganization of our workspace felt like a good time to bring Starwipe back, if only to say farewell.

Just like how Lisa Simpson once said, “There are other wipes besides star wipes,” there are also other ways for us to conduct playful in-house challenges. While it was fun and nostalgic to bring Starwipe back one more time, it wasn’t the same – we aren’t the same CVWmedia!

You can’t always recreate the magic of days gone by, but you can create new magic! So that’s what we’re going to do. Stay tuned!

This post is in memory of Starwipe (2011-2019).