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Artist James Jarvis is an obsessive runner, which explains much. His art led to a tremendously popular toy line, Amos, and now it takes this form of a charming, knowing, even inspirational little bit of animation. Don’t let the fact that it’s supported by Nike color your viewing–Jarvis wanted to move into motion graphics and through a friend at the Swoosh was able to shake out the funding to make it happen.

“At the beginning of last year I was thinking about what kind of project I would like to work on. I had become interested in the idea of characters that were less referential and more iconic and abstract. I particularly wanted to do something with a potato-headed stick-man that I had been drawing at that time,” he writes on his blog.

“I liked the idea of a moving image project that involved my obsession with running. Rather than make a narrative-based film, I wanted the content to be non-linear, reflecting the way I make drawings that have a logic all of their own.”

The title of this post comes from Jarvis, too, and is every bit as marvelous as the short film. Watch it. Then go for a run.

Tagged as: advertising/marketing, running