After graduating the top of their class in Political Science at Kenyon College, Philip and Harry decided they wanted to share some of the knowledge they'd gained with others. This was the idea behind Spectacles:

Tell stories that matter to democracy.

And so Spectacles was born — as a newsletter, in fact! But after about a year of mixed success, the two decided it was time to pivot, and Spectacles was reborn as a YouTube channel.

"We learned so much in that process, and we've learned more than I could have imagined since then, just making these videos every day, telling these stories."
- Harry Clennon, co-founder

Since then, Spectacles has grown tremendously: reaching 100,000 subscribers and 6 million total views in about a year-and-a-half. Still, the Spectacles dream was far too big to all fit in one YouTube channel.

Why other people's stories?

Spectacles began working on contract video productions after Harry and Philip had amassed a wealth of experience, knowledge, and broad skills in 2D and 3D animation, video and audio editing, music composition, and of course writing.

"What sort of began as a side-interest for us has become a core passion of what we do. We've got our stories, and we love telling them. But there's something uniquely rewarding about helping others tell theirs."
- Philip Brain, co-founder

As a result of their broad skills, Philip and Harry have been able to build Spectacles into a remarkably versatile and fully-featured two-person studio: a veritable one-stop-shop that can handle research, copy, animation, music composition, narration, and anything in between.

With clients from the American midwest to the western cape of South Africa, with backgrounds from voting reform to infrastructure renewal to wine, Harry and Philip have been fortunate to work with a wide variety of clients and project types.