Alain Bertaud is a legendary urbanist (don't call him an urban planner, you'll be sorry) and Marie-Agnes Bertaud is a geographic data expert. Together they have lived all over the world, planned many of its cities and raised three children while having many exciting adventures. Think Indiana Jones by way of Jane Jacobs.

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Alain has been a mentor to L for a long time, and asked her to edit his revolutionary book Order Without Design. During the process, Alain and Marie-Agnes regaled us with tales of daring, derring-do and data from Hudaydah in Yemen to Jakarta in Indonesia. They are master storytellers, and we wanted to give their stories the exciting, colorful visual treatment they deserved.

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So we filmed them telling a couple of stories - one about how the first airport in Hudaydah was built - it involves a Russian limousine being held for ransom - and set about animating them.

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We decided that since there were a variety of locales and characters, we would simplify as much as possible. Simple wooden blocks in various configurations and dropcloths as backgrounds. No articulated figures, just colorful vector characters printed and pasted on wooden block figures. An impressionistic visual style to give color to the already animated vocal delivery.

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The only full video ready for viewing is a simple opening sequence we planned to tag on to each short story. Hopefully we'll get the rest done soon too.