This debut Just Six Degrees is launched by film and game graphic designer Annie Atkins, whose portfolio includes Oscar-winning work on Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel, Camelot, The Boxtrolls, Vikings and The Tudors. 

Work by Annie Atkins: 

Annie Atkins nominated film poster designer and musician Sam Smith:

"I really love the work of the American film poster designer Sam Smith. I saw one of his posters online years ago, but he wasn't credited (that's Tumblr!) and I didn't think too much about who had designed it, I just loved it. It was for a film called Elena. I thought of it again years later when I was designing the poster for an Irish film and I looked it up. I found that it was designed by the Nashville artist and musician Sam Smith (he also drums for Ben Folds) and he has so many beautiful pieces in his portfolio. He works in a really bold, abstract way – very illustrative – and every poster he makes is a work of art."

Work by Sam Smith: 

Also check out Sam's design podcast The Poster Boys

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Sam Smith nominated artist and designer Akiko Stehrenberger:

"Akiko is one of the only people creating hand-painted theatrical movie posters in today's marketplace - a craft that used to pervade the industry before computer-equipped design shops pushed individual poster artists to the fringes. The time and effort involved in these paintings alone is impressive, but Akiko also brings a dreamlike, dark, and sometimes surreal voice to her film posters that addresses the psychological aspects of her film subjects.

Working in low profile a freelancer and competing often simultaneously with larger agencies on the same project, Akiko doesn't always see her pieces go through to a final selection. But these pieces are always more interesting than what studios ultimately go with; Her pieces pitched for Spike Jonze's HER and Jonathan Glazer's UNDER THE SKIN are particularly inspired and iconic."

Work by Akiko Stehrenberger:

Akiko Stehrenberger nominated fine artist Christopher Murphy:

"It's always hard to narrow down who influences me most. I have so many great artists and designers around me constantly stimulating me creatively. I'd like to nominate Christopher Murphy for my current inspiration, as I'm trying to get back into oil painting almost 20 years after I last touched turpenoid.
Christopher is a fellow Art Center alumnus and I was first introduced to his work through our mutual friend. His solo show in 2011, Forget That You Were Young, knocked my socks off and I soon became obsessed with his paintings, particularly portraits based off his family photos. One piece in particular, stayed in my brain for many years. Finally realizing that grown ups do indeed buy paintings for their homes, I buckled down and bought his Picking Teams Is Always So Stressful after obsessing over it for about three years. It's the centerpiece of my living room and always sparks conversations by visitors and many thoughts of "Damn it Akiko, get off your ass and oil paint some time!" I always look forward to seeing what Christopher does next."

Christopher Murphy and his work:

Christopher Murphy nominated photographer Jeremy Liebman:

Jeremy has an unusual eye. He took a photo of a bathroom vanity mirror and made it unusually compelling. I would have never seen the potential. This is what I find so inspiring about Jeremy's work. He finds the eccentricities just beneath the surface of his subject and exposes them, sometimes subtly, sometimes to grand effect. His keen perception of what is essential to whatever he is shooting, be it a Tokyo skyscraper, another artist, or a screaming red stiletto shoe, ensures that his photos are never merely precious or quirky, but instead provocatively off-kilter and engaging. And, not for nothing, his photos are, formally speaking, beautifully shot and composed, to boot.

Work by Jeremy Liebman:

Jeremy Liebman nominations physicist and cosmologist Max Tegmark: 

The MIT physicist and cosmologist Max Tegmark has been a significant, though perhaps unlikely, recent influence on my work. In Our Mathematical Universe as well as in his published scientific papers, Tegmark joyfully probes the essential nature of things, examining both the very large and the very small, including quantum effects, the expansion of the universe, and the existence of different types of alternate universes. As a photographer, my interest has been in working with the outside world and taking it as it is, showing unusual phenomena, occasionally intervening, but never creating from whole cloth. My intent has always been to show how the world actually is, rather than a tidy, pictorial fiction. This approach requires me to acknowledge the fundamental imprecision that exists in any subjective experience, but to try to overcome that imprecision to reach for the universal. Similarly, Tegmark takes a Neo-Platonist approach to science, acknowledging the arbitrary nature of our perception, while maintaining a belief in a fundamental, organizing principal. Finally, Tegmark presents his theories with an admirable and inspiring humor and curiosity, maintaining his scientific rigor, but still struck with awe by the natural world. 

Max Tegmark, Our Mathematical Universe, pictured:

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