Storytelling emotion creates conversions. Tech mimicking emotional intelligence creates intuitive UX. Standard operational protocols manage employee emotion.
"August House LLC is my vehicle for capitalizing on neurodivergent creativity to find innovative solutions that blend efficient structure and emotion."
As a Digital Business Consultancy we succeed by taking a “design-first” approach in every service offered. This methodology inherently brings life to brand storytelling, imbues tech UX with apparent emotional intelligence to anticipate needs, and builds-out dev-focused remote startup teams into fully-realized, customized corporate entities using detailed standard protocols and inter-team process that manage stakeholder, investor, and employee emotion, expectations, and results.
Publicly branded as August.Style by @seanivore, owner, LGBTQI+ and ASD artist Sean August Horvath, the company's art house is focused on highlighting visual art’s significance to emotional and mental health of society in three ways. (1) By reconnecting design and development through the aforementioned consultancy advocating tech-forward social good through decentralization and automation or "A.I.” (2) Bringing community back to art in remote, decentralization-focused, creator collectives — inspired by spending his 20s in LA hanging out in IRL studios, filled with like-minded people, happy for a spectator as they throw ceramics, painting, or repair a vintage motorcycle. The next generation of creatives need the same kind of space that naturally becomes a space to share inspiration, garner motivation, collaborate, and share resources. (3) And finally, he aims to elevate the significance society places on art, by publishing his own work.
In his own words he describes his recent work as “searching for ornate intricacy in the mundane” by exploring textures and playing with light, like digitally layering monochromatic transparent layers that create ornate decor and realistic statues.
More historically Horvath has stayed true to creating to embolden but soften the human male form. He is currently entranced by post-vaporwave surrealism and mid-century futurism, as well as watching maximalism neon-tropical jungle-core slowly transform into a fresh version of an art deco aesthetic.
"My art and thought are an approximation of what is felt, rather than any specific reality that is seen — employing a focus on shapes, silhouettes, shadows — often focusing on a conversation with light through pattern."
Horvath attributes a large portion of his talent to atypical brain functioning making him an "unintentional” trend spotter.
“Greater variation in sensory input allows for the illusion of making trends, rarely following them. Novel visual trends are created by designing for longevity. Capture a modern feel by blending multiple trends just subtle enough to avoid an overdone aesthetic or give away the game, but decisive enough to be recognized as the next obvious step forward.”
“But — always ensure the work can fade to a timeless classic. Done properly and the viewer won't recognize from whence the step forward originated."
"— that is to say, I produce art designed to control feelings; manipulating them in product design.
“I'm as interested in visual design as designing digital business architecture, operational procedures, creative process, hiring creative teams to puzzle together new departments, or in development of strategy that always places efficiency for the user first.
I attend to details above all else because — seen consciously or not — they influence the resulting feel of the final product. These are the same tiny elements so often only felt in expertly engineered luxury or designer products. But there is a flaw: The human mind is complex enough to register that something is wrong even if the individual can't identify which details are out of place, removing the user completely from the subject from the work. Neglecting details creates camp, and I am not a huge fan.
"I'd go so far to say that I consider details to be the primary subject of all digital content I produce."
It's sort of like luxury? Good luxury. Multi-generational purchases. Shoes you can take to the cobbler. Luggage that turns heads and has a lifetime warranty. “I will pay a premium for it if it will outlive me!”
So yes, it is correct that most viewers won't notice the extent to which the details are painstakingly attended to. Any logos or common memes I remake in Adobe Illustrator and completely avoid pixelated google search images.
“I see no reason for memes or any digital media I produce to be below today’s norms of resolution, etc."
Modernized for today’s visual language, we can level up this bit of online-speak. Anyone working with visual media recognizes stock images reused by brands daily. I avoid this like the plague.
Fortunately, we know we’ll capture that top percentile of people who do notice details; who have wanted a resource that was polished as a text book or Instagram page. It's something of an undertone. The feel of above standard quality. Perfectionist worthy value. Worth worth value.
He views ASD, ADHD and their resultant recurring lifelong "pauses" of depression as his "superpower."
"Innovation is my stronghold."
I discovered early 30s of my autism, attention deficit hyper-activity disorder, and aphantasia of the visual (but not the conceptual, contextual, or spacial mental projection. To put that plainly, I can mentally feel the shape of an apple, and I can imagine it is red along with as many other attributes memory will allow, but my mind's eye holds nothing but black.) It is a fairly glorious combination.”
On aphantasia in visual design he posits, "Perhaps it is best described as 'The computer monitor is unplugged' because the computer itself does not need the monitor to accomplish tasks. For me it seems that, where once there was a monitor some number of ancestors back, now exists something more ingrained in visual thought. The computer can recognize all the signals it is being sent to understand; it then uses that knowledge to create a monitor image of an apple. In that sense it often feels like there might have been a middleman removed from my brain processes. No one up there needs the monitor! One could even go so far as to equate the antiquated use of keyboard and mouse to control modern technology with the removal of this 'mental monitor' middleman."
I see art and designing systems as skills derived from assessing resources, identifying variables, problem solving, and maybe a good eye. Plus patience: if the product looks better after 20 hours instead of four, it will get 20 hours, likely in one sitting.
This confidence is born of growing up with a weird encyclopedic knowledge and detailed memory; never meant to be controlling. I love being challenged for the hunt towards the truth.
That confidence was finally put to the test during the advent of social media analytics. I was one of the lucky millennials: equally as successful in producing viral content before as after analytics.
I grew with analytics. Much of my earlier career portfolio achievements come with press hits, about social! The most memorable was regarding engagement on social and direct SMS marketing. The non-profit marketing analytics agency M+R (still kicking https://mrbenchmarks.com/journeys) used metrics from my work as benchmarks for selling and closing advocacy brands. Also worth noting on https://www.aug.ltd are the multiple years of 5x to 9x growth in video views, social to web traffic, and impressions. Once I even gave a presentation on social strategy to Buzzfeed in return for their presentation on content strategy — you know, back when they were just a website and way before Tasty. These successes were broken down and presented to build digital teams, including brand verticals around the world.
I often find myself adhering to the priorities necessary for a whole system or organization without intention. In reverse, I often see how something works without having to take anything apart. This allowed me to identify variables holding back videos from going viral. It allowed me to increase form conversations, control where a viewer's eye moves on an image.
As I continue to capitalize on neurodivergent creativity through innovative problem solving, formulating novel strategies that address as many pebbles in the roadway ahead as can be found, I aim to bring design back to development. Truly from the ground up this time. And ideally in literally every aspect of business or personal life.
I think a lot about the unique joy visual stimuli brings to the human brain and what that means for product design — as well as design and architecture at large.
My longer than typical climb up the social normal learning curve required an eventual intense understanding of etiquette and human behavior. I ended up knowing it all better than the neurotypicals. This knowledge today allows me to inform UX that anticipated the needs via the emotions of users.
I believe through art, all technology can embody a feeling of emotional intelligence needed to make a user feel like they can skip the new app tour. I half want to delete apps that give a walk-through.