When Randy from Madrona suggested I explore making different styles of shortform content, I did some reasearch and gathered some concepts that went outside of our comfort zone of how-to and explainer shorts.
So at the beginning of 2026, we began to experiment with shortform concepts with the aim to dazzle and create curiosity rather than to provide an explanation.
Randy liked the idea of incorporating tactile objects to marry with the sounds, creating a sort of ‘visual metaphor’ for how the synthesizer was creating the sound.
Clever choice of these objects also created new entry points into the world of Madrona for people who might be new to synthesizers or sound design, but are interested in those objects.
My favorite of these was a stop motion animation I made of a Rubik’s cube, scrambling and unscrambling itself, paired with Sumu essentially doing the same thing but with sound synthesis.
It only took 337 photos to create the animation – not that many in the world of stop motion!
Check out my gallery page to see more examples of this idea at work!