Ode to a Mad Explorer
Postscript foreword: My friend Flavio left this realm of so-called reality on Thursday, August 26, 2021. His departure is a gut punch of a loss for so many who knew and loved him. I wrote this essay at Kampah’s request for a book about his art and his exploits.
He’s my friend, but I’m still not sure what to call him…
FLAVIO? KAMPAH? F CK? SIR? MY LORD?
By any name, I love this crazy Italian. He’s been my friend and an inspiration for nearly 30 years. I remain impressed with the speed and facility with which reinvents himself and evolves as a person and an artist.
For as long as I have known him, Flavio* has always pushed boundaries and moved ahead of what was conceived as the proper way to create, or even behave. This is a man who as a teenager dubbed himself KAMPAH, forcing the letter K (non-existent in Italian) on his language and his country
This friendly rebellious nature was true also in his career. In 1990 Flavio was working as a designer and director at Cinecitta Studios in Rome. He saw some new work coming out of Los Angeles at the pioneering motion graphic design studio Pittard Sullivan Design. Flavio would get himself recruited by Misters Pittard and Sullivan. He was not to be ignored.
In 1991 he was hired. We became fast friends.
When his family arrived in Los Angeles, I became a regular fixture at his home in Venice Beach. I would trade English lessons for Italian with his young daughter Irene, Nene. Flavio’s brother Gino became and remains a dear friend. Though we did not share a language, I built a lasting, loving relationship with Cristina, Kittah, Kampah’s wife.
Flavio invited me to visit his family home in Parma that Christmas. We got a private audience at the Bodoni Museum, had holiday dinners with family and friends. Auguri! I met Flavio’s Mom Pina, and his young brother Andrea, and lovely sister Barbara. We dined with his mentor and former boss, Augusto Vignali. We also traveled south in a whirlwind tour of Toscano, Pisa, Trevignano, Firenze, Roma e Venezia. We drank like fish and ate like kings. Flavio dubbed our adventure Venice a Venezia. It was a once-in-a-lifetime way to see Italy and experience life of the Campagna. Flavio, his family, and friends were magnificent hosts.
Back in Hollywood, I had the privilege of introducing Flavio to the Mac. It was a tool that would change his life. These were virtually prehistoric times when viewed in the context of today’s digital graphic design, art, and animation. But we were privileged to use the best tools available at the time. Those tools were prohibitively expensive.
Flavio was less than satisfied with the conventional methods of creating in the Pittard Sullivan style. He saw much more potential in these new Macs and he enlisted others to see it the way he did. Those others included Mark Plunkett and David Sparrgrove, fellow desktop pioneers.
Flavio’s genuine breakthrough was the music video he and Mark would create for U2. It was a colorful, frenetic, video collage for the band’s “Even Better Than the Real Thing” from their milestone album Achtung Baby.
Many, like me, naively saw Flavio’s method for creating the U2 video as inefficient and impractical. Were very impressed with the beautiful results, but it seemed a little like trying to build the Taj Mahal with tweezers. He was pushing these new tools beyond their capability. We didn’t see what we would know in hindsight — what he was doing was revolutionary.
Throughout his career, Flavio has connected himself to those who could help him realize his vision. His mentors — like the famed Fiorucci graphic designer Vignali, Neville Brody during Flavio’s time in London, or the late-great, Godfather of motion graphic design Harry Marks—saw in Flavio a like-minded creator who would continue to advance the art and design they dedicated their lives to creating.
Flavio would continue along his revolutionary path, starting his own company Kampah Visions with his brother and stalwart supporter Gino. He teamed with director Pierluca de Carlo, along with Adobe, Apple, and Radius — and their early desktop video technology — to create 30 Fragments, 60 fields, an audiovisual ode to creation set to Puccini’s aria Nessun Dorma. He created an award-winning ad for Cherry Coke with the a-list ad agency Chiat Day.
Throughout the 90s, small studios and post-production companies like ours were making strides in what would become known as motion graphics or motion design. We were bringing modern graphic design aesthetics to animation, following in the path of legendary creators like Saul Bass, Pablo Ferro, and Harry Marks. Many of us on the leading edge were fortunate to be working with clients like TV networks and ad agencies who would pay well for us to create with expensive, state-the-art systems.
But Flavio was pioneering methods that would erase those expensive, elitist, conventional ways of making graphic design that moved. He was using and promoting tools for creation that were being put in the hands of the creators. The advances he championed upended the entire business of video post-production. They essentially killed an industry, while inventing a new one where creators would control the means of production.
Flavio was never a prophet — he was more a possessed, single-minded creator forging ahead no matter the obstacle. To employ his vision, he would work to ignore or obliterate those obstacles that would impede him from getting what he wanted. His drive would propel him to invent and create, as a designer, as an artist, and as a world-traveling mad explorer.
Like it or not, he keeps dragging the rest of us along with him.
Thank you old friend.
*Placeholder name for his lordship.
