fred-frederator-studios:

Frederator’s 20th Anniversary: 2002-2003

A limited edition postcard for our anniversary, and my limited memory of our years… 

2002 was a year of transition, as we starting adding digital media into our bag of cartoon tricks. 

Frederator  established a strategic partnership with the now defunct Primedia in New York, publishers of hundreds of speciality magazines and new owner of About.com. CEO Tom Rogers asked us to oversee the digital arms of their teen publications like Tiger Beat, 16, and Seventeen. Emil Rensing brought some colleagues from Aol, some of Fred’s media friends came aboard, and we were off to the interactive races. 

Inspired by 30 years of Herman Miller’s Summer Picnic Posters and his personal obsession, Fred inaugurated an annual New Year’s poster, the first one by Los Angeles designer Patrick Raske.

By 2003 we were humming along. Early in the year Frederator Studios got a 4th Nickelodeon pick-up. Rob Renzetti –a special creative relationship dating back to my Hanna-Barbera days– created My Neighbor was a Teenage Robot as the sixth of his six Oh Yeah! shorts and it morphed into a big fan favorite, My Life as a Teenage Robot, with Alex Kirwan as Rob’s creative partner and art director. Eric Homan returned West to set up the production. 

ChalkZone was in it’s second season of production. 

And, thanks to Emil’s idea to start the first production blogs from a network series, The Teenage Roblog, MLaaTR has a loyal fan base that’s stayed active into this decade. 

Eric developed a relationship with Mexican born artist and  creator/director Jorge Gutierrez who provided us with a uniquely stunning entry into our now annual New Year’s poster. 

And, without a shorts incubator in production, I missed the regular flow of postcards. Our friends Sean Adams and Noreen Morioka of AdamsMorioka/Los Angeles (designers of the Frederator logotype) stepped up and agreed to design an entire series (#4). Problem solved. 

More to come. 

Artwork from the top: Frederator postcards Series 42.1; 2002 poster by Patrick Raske; My Life as a Teenage Robot poster: Art direction: Alex Kirwan, Designed & illustrated by Jill Friemark; BoschZone by Frank Rocco; 2003 poster by Jorge Gutierrez; Frederator postcard No. 13 by AdamsMorioka. 

 …..

From the postcard back:

Congratulations!

You are one of 300 people

to receive this limited edition

Frederator postcard!

www.frederator.com

20 Years of Frederator

1998 – 2018

Series 42.1 [mailed out February 16, 2018]

©2018, Frederator Networks, Inc.

A WOW! Unlimited Media Company. All rights reserved.