Lo Harris Interview
In this engaging conversation, Lo Harris, a multidisciplinary artist, shares her unconventional journey into the creative world, emphasizing the importance of authenticity, joy, and the power of imperfection. She discusses her experiences in motion design, illustration, and the significance of world-building in her work. Lo encourages aspiring creatives to embrace their unique paths, follow their muses, and navigate the ever-changing landscape of creativity with confidence and openness.
Takeaways
Creativity has no conventional start; every journey is unique.
Limitations can enhance creativity and innovation.
It's essential to use the resources you have at hand.
You don't need permission to pursue your creative passions.
Authenticity and joy should be at the core of your work.
Embrace a multidisciplinary approach to creativity.
Follow your muse and act on your creative impulses.
Don't be afraid to change and evolve as an artist.
The digital landscape offers various ways to express creativity.
Collaboration and community are vital for growth in the creative field.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Lo Harris and Her Artistry
02:57 The Unconventional Journey of a Creative
06:03 Finding Your Creative Voice
09:08 The Power of Imperfection in Creativity
11:54 Embracing Multidisciplinarity
14:53 The Importance of Authenticity and Joy
17:53 World Building and Representation in Art
20:59 Navigating Change in the Creative Landscape
23:51 Advice for Aspiring Creatives
26:55 Inspiration from Iconic Creatives
29:59 Teasing Future Projects and Engagements
Transcript:
Mack Garrison (00:00)
Hey, what's up y'all? Mack Garrison here with Dash Studio and we've got another Dash Bash video interview series and I'm sitting here with the talented Lo Harris who is a multi-disciplinary artist known for her bold, colorful and empowering artwork that celebrates confidence, authenticity and the power within each of us.
Her vibrant characters and affirming messages radiate positivity, inspiring everyone to embrace themselves and uplift their communities. And I feel uplifted just in our pre-conversation, Lo, welcome to the podcast, the video cast, whatever we're calling this interview series. Of course, now I know we tried to get you at the second dash bash, but I think we ran into a little bit of an illness. So we are all thrilled to have you back this summer, healthy.
Lo Harris (00:32)
Thank you for having me, Mack.
Mack Garrison (00:44)
wealthy with wisdom and everything that comes along with that.
Lo Harris (00:48)
Last year my
tummy was turning. I woke up, I was looking at my suitcase and it was looking at me back and I said, I should not be on another plane.
Mack Garrison (00:55)
It was like, absolutely not. You're not
on this plane today. I totally get that. I totally get that. You know, I was looking around, gearing up for this interview and I did a little sleuthing. I had to look you up a little bit, find some other interviews. And one that I found that really stuck out to me was this piece through Adobe. It was, do you do, Harris? You know, and it was this piece where I think they were interviewing a little bit. And one thing you mentioned in there was this idea of being kind of, and having an unconventional start. Maybe you could have,
start there and explain to me a little bit of this unconventional start into this creative world that you are in.
Lo Harris (01:31)
appreciate that. So it's so funny because my attitudes towards how my career started have actually changed since that interview where I used to feel like what I was doing was unconventional. And then I was just like, who's start is conventional? Like there's no such thing as a conventional start when it comes to creativity. Like you just get in and you do what you do. And like that creative energy is something that...
There are many ways to manifest it. For some people, manifesting it comes through going to a portfolio school, you know, doing the whole thing. For some people, it comes from just jumping into the deep end and making things because you want to. And both...
avenues are valid because everything about creativity, they're all just tools. Like motion design is just a tool, right? And there's no gatekeeping tools. How you use your tool is different. There are about 80 million ways to do something in After Effects, like whether it's through plugin or through just various, you know, different things. Sometimes there are things that I need to do in Photoshop that I do in After Effects instead, because I'm like more comfortable editing a photo in After Effects.
Mack Garrison (02:24)
Yes.
You know, I
have been there as well too embarrassingly I've brought stuff into After Effects that forgotten how to do it in Photoshop So I'm right there with you Lo
Lo Harris (02:41)
Yes, yes,
really like my Photoshop card has been declined. So I need to get back into that. But in terms of my start, so I started out, I'm going really, really far back. So yes, so I grew up in Bessemer, Alabama.
Mack Garrison (02:57)
Let's take it back all the way to the beginning. love it.
Lo Harris (03:03)
I was born in Chicago. I moved to Bessemer, Alabama when I was in kindergarten. When I went to Alabama, you know, I had always been a little bit into creativity, but it wasn't until my mom...
heard about or she didn't just hear about it. She actually knew about it already. This school called the Alabama School of Fine Arts. It's a public school. Anyone can and you have to apply. Anyone can apply. They have room and board for students who live farther away. It's a really cool experience in the Southeast. And while I attended that school from the seventh grade to the 12th grade, I had the opportunity to study creative writing in the creative writing department. And the curriculum was modeled
very similarly to the Iowa Writers Workshop. So we would really be reading, critiquing, reading contemporary poets, not just like the English literature classics and analyzing each other's prose. And so the foundation of my storytelling and learning how to tell critique, learning how to take critique really came from my experience there. And they had a visual arts department, but I was not a visual arts student. So I always put this boundary around myself
Mack Garrison (03:49)
Hmm.
Lo Harris (04:15)
where I would, you know, I'd be in the back of class and I'll be like huddling over my desk and I'll be drawing like this, cause I don't want anybody to see what I'm doing, cause I'm not one of the real visual artists. And it wasn't until later that I learned, like that's kind of like, you know, not accurate, like you can do whatever you want, but.
Mack Garrison (04:25)
Sure, right.
100
% these preconceived notions of what art is and what an artist looks like basically,
Lo Harris (04:38)
Exactly. I started with creative writing, then I ended up going to Northwestern to study journalism.
I realized that journalistic writing is just not my ministry. It's just not for me. It's dry. And I understand why it has to be dry because you got to get the facts right. But I was like, that is not my ministry. But what I fell in love with was video storytelling. And I was convinced that I was going to be a shooter, editor, video producer and go down that route. But then I ended up falling into this cool sub genre of video journalism, which was motion design. At the time when I was in
Mack Garrison (04:50)
Mmm.
Sure.
Mm.
Lo Harris (05:16)
college, Vox videos were super popular and I was incredibly inspired by the ways that they were able to take complex stories and distill them into these really informative animations and really kind of take what people in traditional production environments might consider like a flaw in production and really use animation to make it fit. Like, you know, maybe we're doing a zoom interview and it's put into a beautiful frame and people can forgive the audio because it's like they feel like they're a part of the UI in some way. It makes it
that
makes sense. And I really enjoyed how motion design could elevate storytelling. And my school did not have any sort of curriculum around motion design in place already. So everything I learned, I learned through internships and through YouTube University.
Mack Garrison (05:55)
Mmm.
wow. There we go. We've all been
a part of that one for sure.
Lo Harris (06:06)
Yes,
we love a YouTube university. Got my little play button, graduation cap and sash. But I ended up landing an internship at the New York Times. And that was kind of one of the first times that I got to do motion design. I actually applied for a role as like a video editing intern. And I put in one motion design, real thing. And they said, we don't want you for that other thing, but you got more of that motion design stuff. And I said, and I didn't, but I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I do.
Mack Garrison (06:25)
Cool.
Lo Harris (06:36)
and then I like raced home and I was like, I need to figure out like how to make something. Like, let me just pull some stats from this website and try to animate the stats and show them that. And so I hustled and told you all.
Mack Garrison (06:45)
Wait a minute, wait
a minute. So you went home and you were like, crap, they need more of a reel from this. And you basically pseudo made a reel of something that didn't exist and just cobbled together little elemental pieces to get that job. Yes, I love it.
Lo Harris (06:56)
I was like, I
don't got that dog in me no more. I'm I'm in my 30s now, in my 20s. I was like, okay.
Mack Garrison (07:02)
Well, I'm so glad
you said that because like, and not to pause you, and this is such a good story, but I feel like there's this perception that things have to be perfect to land that next gig or next opportunity. You just had to be pulling together what looks like positions you in the right place, right? You don't have that perfect reel. That's okay. You don't have a million pieces to show. That's okay. Let's pull together what I need for this moment right now. Might not be perfect, but who knows what's gonna happen.
Lo Harris (07:29)
It's about timing. It's about saying, listen, and exactly, it's never gonna be perfect. If you're waiting for perfection, you're never gonna pull the trigger because perfection doesn't exist.
Mack Garrison (07:40)
Right. Well said.
Lo Harris (07:41)
You have to
use what you got in the kitchen. Like you're not gonna not eat. okay, if you're living through a famine and you have like X amount of food in your kitchen, you're not gonna like not find something to make because, well, it's not the perfect lasagna. No, you're gonna make water lasagna. You're gonna pull together things out of that kitchen. You're gonna make the beans. You're gonna make it the best pot of beans you ever had because that's the option that you have.
Mack Garrison (08:00)
Yeah, that's right. You don't like beans. That's all right. You're going to eat some beans and toast. You know, it's just as what it is.
That's right.
Lo Harris (08:11)
I think creativity is no different where creativity actually thrives through those limitations. And so, you know, the limitation of me being like, I'm a student, I only have so much. It's like, hey, I'm just going to go and I'm going to shoot my shot. And I ended up getting my first internship at the New York Times in Motion Design. And from there, I ended up going to a couple of other places. I joined the NBC page program because I wasn't sure if motion design was for me, because I, again, I didn't go to a portfolio school, so I didn't know if I was competitive or not.
and it was like a specter that haunted me throughout the program because now I was like, that's the page that knows how to do after effects. Put her on this assignment, put her on that assignment. So after NBC page program, I joined NBC news as an associate animator. And it was in my first year, a little bit after my first year anniversary at that organization that I ended up going viral on Instagram for illustration.
Mack Garrison (09:08)
nice.
Lo Harris (09:10)
So my illustration portfolio, or I guess my Instagram, I actually started an illustration Instagram because I used to love to draw back in high school, like I told you, but I would always be hiding my drawing and I didn't feel connected to it. So I decided, hey, how about you go, you reconnect with your inner child and you start to draw again. You stopped in college, just start to draw again, do something fun. One of my coworkers gave me this book by Lisa Congdon called,
Mack Garrison (09:21)
Sure.
Lo Harris (09:39)
find your artistic voice, something to that effect. I think it's in my inspiration library here on my desk. But I was reading that book and I said, well, I can find my artistic voice too. And I started drawing and I actually named my account Lo Harris because I didn't want my friends who knew me as Lauren to see me just trying to draw.
Mack Garrison (10:01)
really, it was like too much to put yourself out there like that? That's so funny.
Lo Harris (10:04)
Yeah, had,
Lo Harris was like my Superman Clark Kent kind of identity thing. And then it backfired. And then I got like a bunch of followers overnight in 2020. And that started what has been a very cool and weird and energizing illustration career and multidisciplinary career where I've gotten to really kind of live.
Mack Garrison (10:09)
Yeah, I love it. I love the dichotomy there. That's great.
Lo Harris (10:33)
like I'm like a Swiss army knife with a bunch of different extensions that I can activate at any time.
Mack Garrison (10:35)
Yeah, well, it's so accurate. mean,
I think back to like that creative writing that you were doing in the early days and even not defining yourself as an artist because that's not me. And then you've gone down all these different pathways. I'm curious now, I mean, do you even define what you're doing as an artist? Like, how do you think back on that version of you that was like, that's not art to all this stuff you've done, would you define yourself as an artist to this day?
Lo Harris (11:01)
absolutely would categorically define myself as an artist, but I would say on the day to day, I'm just a creative person who does what she wants. Like, and I kind of love that. Like I'm just myself at this point.
Mack Garrison (11:14)
Hmm.
Lo Harris (11:15)
It's so funny the power that a title can hold over your head when you're a creative. There are some people I know who aspire to be art directors or aspire to be creative directors and the only way to have that aspiration satisfied is for an organization to bestow you that role. Right, right. And that's not.
Mack Garrison (11:21)
Yeah.
to validate you with this position basically. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Lo Harris (11:40)
the case, I kind of forged myself into a creative director, into an illustrator, into all of these different things through unconventional avenues that go outside of kind of the typical corporate structure. You know, you don't need permission to do anything.
Mack Garrison (11:54)
yeah, you can do whatever.
What's so interesting to me, and I'm so curious about this, like, you know, there used to be, and maybe there still is, this philosophy as a creative to like niche down, be good at like one thing. And if you're so good at one thing, people can't ignore you, they gotta hire it. But for a lot of us, know, our studio included, that feels a little boring. You want that variety, you wanna do a lot of different things. How has that shaped how you've pitched yourself for work?
or has it shifted it or in a way has it just been more about versus more opportunities coming to you because you're kind of open to it and as a result things stick out more than they maybe would have otherwise if you had been a bit more pointed.
Lo Harris (12:35)
Ooh, okay, let me break this down with a little dichotomy here. The worst piece of advice I've ever gotten in my professional career, and I forgive my boss at the time for giving me this advice, because I'm sure he knows better now. He said, you have to niche down if you want to do anything in this industry. Like get good at one thing. And so I was like, dang, that's depressing. That's right. I tried to live in that matrix, honey. It just didn't work for me.
Mack Garrison (12:40)
I'm ready for it.
Yeah, right.
Lo, I hope you said it exactly
like that. Like when you said that, you were over like, damn, that's depressing.
Lo Harris (13:07)
I wasn't grown enough. I
wasn't grown enough. If I saw him today, I'd be like, come here, I gotta tell you something. that was the worst piece of advice. The best piece of advice I've ever gotten from another mentor was be a pleasure to work with, which has served me.
Mack Garrison (13:12)
Yeah, that's so funny.
Lo Harris (13:21)
a lot in my multidisciplinary career. for me, know, obviously, you know, people are going to the things that you put on your portfolio, people are going to largely associate you with that. And so for me, as a multidisciplinary artist, one thing I've had to struggle with is a lot of brand confusion, because there are some people who know me as Lo the animator. There are some people who know me as Lo the illustrator. There are some people who know me as Lo from the Cannes Can Diversity Collection.
an
organization, I'm a volunteer senior leadership member for about diversity, equity, and inclusion in the advertising and media industries. There some people who know me for a variety of different things, right?
Mack Garrison (13:59)
Nice.
Lo Harris (14:05)
I kind of, and the thing that bonds them all together is that generally the people who are tapping into me for these various parts of my Swiss Army Knife collection is that they and I work well together and we find each other a pleasure to work with. And I think that.
kind of when you put limits on yourself, when you say I'm only doing freelance things as this particular title because that is what I'm trained to do, that's all well and good if that's actually like you just don't, you're not interested in doing all the other stuff, right? But it is, it's a ceiling. It's a ceiling that you're placing on yourself. There's no reason for an animator to not pursue illustration as well if they want to. And I think that as long as
Mack Garrison (14:50)
Right
Lo Harris (14:53)
you kind of, develop your style, you do your thing, like your craft is one thing, like obviously develop your craft, but I think the relationships and the people skills of kind of saying like, hey, like.
I just started illustration two years ago, but I'm really working on my practice and I'm working well with you, you're working well with me. People, as long as the end result gets met, like people really value, like I really liked working with so-and-so and I want to think of them for this thing in the future. I hope that answered the question.
Mack Garrison (15:25)
No, it
did. I love the altruistic attitude. How do I lift people up? How can I help the folks around me? How can I go above and beyond for whatever the ask is to make sure it's met and just to help this individual? I think it stems from just the variety of different backgrounds you've experienced in feeling more comfortable trying new things and therefore feeling a little bit easier to say, sure, I could do that. I know another piece that I noticed about you Lo is, you while you have these different skill sets, they're almost unified.
under this umbrella of champion joy, promoting authenticity and celebrating that shared humanity. So it's interesting to see like while it's all these varied subjects, there's a core to it all of who you are, that personality. What motivates you to bring such uplifting energy into your projects and what impact do you hope to leave on your audience?
Lo Harris (16:16)
Ooh, okay, I'm gonna break down the Lo-Harris universe for you. Okay, so first of all, anything creative I do is a part of the Lo-Harris universe. I don't care if it's drawing, I don't care if it's speaking, I don't care if it's whatever, it's a part of my universe of creativity and it exists there, right? And there are a few rules that I follow in the Lo-Harris universe, which is being inclusive, connecting with other human beings, finding common ground.
and self-love and advocacy, you know, and there are certain messages, like, for example, there's a phrase that I use in my artwork, but also I talk about it on my YouTube channel and also I manifested in all of these different ways, you know, the phrase is you are worthy, right? So you are worthy is like a greater thematic concept for me as an artist that I'm able to employ into multiple
Mack Garrison (16:50)
of that.
Lo Harris (17:15)
multiple disciplines and multiple mediums. So one categorical bucket of my creative work is just my straight up illustration work, just generically Lo Harris, lots of like illustrated text, lots of fabulous ladies, bright colors, whatever that is categorically Lo Harris illustrator. I'm working on a side project right now where I want to create a separate, I have created a separate account of illustrations called Planet Prismara, which is very cute.
Mack Garrison (17:30)
Yeah.
Lo Harris (17:45)
and kind of like it's adult slash kid friendly is kind of one of those things where like anyone of any age can kind of find something about it. And there's little characters I created called the Munchkies. And they're just these little like multicultural little characters and they all wear little onesies like yellow in primary colors, yellow, red, da da da. And each of them represent.
Mack Garrison (17:53)
I love that.
When does the
toy line of the munchkies come out? That's what I feel like saying.
Lo Harris (18:09)
when somebody brings
me some funding, But...
Mack Garrison (18:12)
There we go, there we go.
Lo Harris (18:14)
The Munchkins, right? It's almost like, can I take the same messages for Lo Harris, which is typically resonating with women in their 20s to 30s, and kind of bring it over to a younger audience and just a more playful, weird audience, and also have some fun, silly, world-building aspects in there where I'm writing the captions as if it's kind of like an ongoing story. So I'll post the next picture and try to find a way to narratively tie.
the last picture I posted with the one that I'm posting to kind of build up the character lore. And it's just like a fun outlet for me, but it's also like a great outlet for again, children's books, right? Children's media. And then of course we have the YouTube where maybe I'm a little bit more mature and a little bit more, whoa, you know, where I'm kind of talking through similar themes again, but in like a, different, it's still one voice. It's still one message, but because
of my multidisciplinary interests, it's like basically kind of activating those messages, making them optimize, responsive design, you know what I mean? I guess for my, you know, ideas. And I think that anyone can do this.
Mack Garrison (19:25)
Yeah, of course.
Well, one of the things that I really like about that methodology is I think it's very apropos for the type of space that we're in right now. You know, I was talking to someone the other day and I couldn't really think of a word to describe it. So I use this word like a digital shelf. You you have people accessing content in all sorts of different ways, know, older generations doing stuff, maybe on like blog posts, you have, you know, Gen X and millennials maybe still doing Reddit or looking at YouTube videos.
and Gen Z doing a lot of in-app searches. And so that's just a lot of different ways that our first touch point to the LoHarris universe could be all these different ways. And so I love that you've kind of curated this digital shelf of all these different access points for people to kind of touch onto. You know, one question I have, and I think it ties onto this a little bit, is we are in this new era of marketing yourself. And what used to be just the website was fine, it's now you have to do all these different things.
And so people are looking at your YouTube page. It's so successful. You've done such a good job of just kind of presenting that universe, presenting that authentic champion of joy and promoting that. What advice would you give to someone who's like maybe never done that, but they're trying to because they recognize like, gosh, you know, I've got to put myself out there a little bit more. Where's a good place to start for someone who's trying to get a little bit more of that public facing influencer for lack of a better word to kind of show off the work and who they are.
Lo Harris (20:59)
You know, I would, the first thing that I would say is follow your muse. So I have this funny ritual with ideas where I used to think, my God, I have a great idea. Let me go write it down so I can remember it later. I never go back to that. In fact, it's like, it's basically just me saying, I got a good idea. Let me go kill it. So I never pursue it again. Now that I've talked about it and I've gotten the adrenaline out around it.
For me, it helps to follow my muse. So following my muse might look like, let's say I don't have YouTube, and this is actually kind of how I started my YouTube actually. I've been wanting to get into YouTube for a little bit, and I had tried here and there, but I just felt like it just wasn't sustainable for me the way I was doing it. And I still hadn't really worked out my identity on that particular platform and how I wanted to produce things where it really fit into my lifestyle. Because here's the thing,
One
thing about me at this point, I'm not about to let being on social media corrode my personal life, my free time. It needs to be easy for me. So that's the first thing. It needs to be easy for you. Customize it for you. Just because Suzy Q over there is doing like 80 posts a day and has like the design thumbnail, all that, like whatever, like keep on moving. What works for you? If she wants to spend six hours of her day doing that, how do you want to spend six hours of her
Mack Garrison (22:17)
Yeah.
Right, and you can do
20 minutes on your phone that that's okay. It's just basically it's like starting, finding what works for you and starting.
Lo Harris (22:30)
Right, and it's about consistency as well, which I'll get into in a bit. But going back to this muse idea, you know, if I feel the urge in me, which I did one day, said, I feel the urge, I just need to like do this YouTube thing. Because I realized if I keep waiting for the right time or for when like I have more time, like less of a demanding work life or whatever, I'm just never going to do it. So how can I follow this muse and act on this muse and just make the channel and make a video? And then if I get into
the groove I'm like I want to do that again next week I want to do that again the following week and then there may be times where it's like hey like I'm busy right now but I still want to engage let me do these shorter videos and I think that when you just follow your muse like don't be so completionist about it just start it and you can put it to the side and it'll still be waiting for you later this is not a race against time like this is your art career and your art practice and it has to develop naturally
Mack Garrison (23:28)
Did you ever feel like, not
to interject, but I'm just so curious, because like creatives, I just feel like we hold stuff in such high regard. Like this is you, this is your personality you're putting out there that I feel like we overthink it sometimes. I mean, heck, I do sometimes. I'm like, I don't know if this is ready to go to the public. How did you kind of overcome that and just be like, forget it. I just got to do it. I got to start. Like, was there anything that just kind of got you over that hurdle?
Lo Harris (23:30)
Yeah, yeah.
I think that...
I've had that natural proclitivity to just start things, but I think that I kind of lost that actually kind of at what some people might look at as like the height of my career where it's like I'm posting on Instagram all the time and everything's like, like I used to do this really specifically branded approach where everything was pink, yellow, blue, green, pink, yellow, blue, green. I had jumpsuits that were blue, Now mind you, it did not look good on my complexion. So that's like a whole other
Mack Garrison (24:16)
right
Lo Harris (24:21)
but I was trying so hard to build the brand that I was taking chunks out of myself. I was losing pieces of myself trying to curate or not even curate, just trying to maintain an online identity that maybe in a fleeting moment made sense for me at a specific time, but I was growing up. I was growing up and I wasn't allowed myself.
Mack Garrison (24:30)
Mm.
Yeah, you were you were almost like tailoring
it to like this idea of what you think you should be versus really like tapping into like like who is low who is me, you
Lo Harris (24:53)
Yes, exactly. And also it's a dynamic thing. Like you are literally a living, breathing organism. Like the you that I was talking to at the start of this call is exponentially different than the you that I'm talking to in this very moment. And you're allowed to change your mind. And I think creatives forget that because people get so caught up in their digital footprint and they're like, well.
Mack Garrison (25:11)
Yeah.
yeah, you're being a hypocrite. It's like,
gotta change.
Lo Harris (25:18)
In my feed,
I posted this thing and like, I'm supposed to be always like this and like, this is what they're expecting. I'ma be real. Don't nobody care enough about me to be paying too much attention to how I post one moment to the next moment. All they see is that thing right there right now. And if I'm being negative, they'll be like, that's sad. You know what I mean? If I'm being positive, they'll be like, that's dope. But nobody's tracking you like that.
Mack Garrison (25:38)
Sure.
Lo Harris (25:43)
And I think kind of accepting that we're all kind of no one and everyone, it's like freeing like that sense of anonymity and that sense of like, I'm just like a, I'm a human, like I'm like a human person and I'm gonna be this way right now. But if I decide that I wanna go through an era where I wear like a top hat and a monocle all day, that's my business. You can unfollow.
Mack Garrison (25:51)
yeah.
I love it. Do you feel like
it's so interesting to me because like, hearing you have these like in my mind, I've got these two visual parallel paths that you're on. There's one that's like the creative Lo Harris and it's your journey from the writing to where you are today. And then there's the personality of Lo Harris that is evolving and changing and adjusting that's kind of moving and sometimes it intersects the creative and where it is today. What I feel like is so strong about you and
and what has been really successful is that you've been able to tap into that. You understand that, and you're flexible and open to the change that is coming. And I think some folks still struggle with how to find that openness. Do you think a lot of that came from trying so many different things? is that maybe what you might encourage audiences to say, like, look, you've just got to dabble and try, and that's the best way to kind of figure out who you are?
Lo Harris (26:55)
I mean, you really gotta go to bat for yourself. Nobody's gonna go to bat for you. You've gotta go to bat for yourself. Otherwise, like what you're just gonna spectate, that's boring. Like, don't you wanna have fun? Don't you wanna like hit the ball, like run around the base, like get tagged? Like, know, like, yes, I think just trying.
Mack Garrison (27:05)
Yeah, yeah, right. No, 100%. Take control.
Lo Harris (27:19)
The hardest part is just trying, you know? The hardest part is trying because I think people get caught into a loop where they are ruminating and they're planning it and they build so many expectations and invest so many anxieties into this perspective of themselves and, know, all the brands, like, you I'm not gonna be like this because what if brands, like, just try, just try.
Mack Garrison (27:45)
Yeah, I love that. Sure.
Lo Harris (27:46)
Of course, respect yourself and of course,
be mindful of your online safety. know, I know with like my YouTube stuff, I'm very, very careful about like identifying information, things like that. But I just, I think that there is, I don't think that social media has to be as big of a boogeyman for artists as they, as the platforms have honestly conditioned us to make it feel like it is, you know. We have gone from a creative economy where it's like you're really kind of measuring
Mack Garrison (28:08)
share.
Lo Harris (28:16)
your creative impact on like actual like interaction and impact on your community. You do a mural and you get to see kids playing in front of the mural, whatever. And like they have taken something that's very human, very organic, very like qualitative and turned it into a quantitative metric that not only is being measured against us by, you know, brands, but by each other, by ourselves. People are actively withholding themselves
Mack Garrison (28:35)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Lo Harris (28:45)
from
creative collaboration because they see someone's following is X and they're at Y. How detrimental to your creativity, how detrimental to your growth as an artist for you to decline?
Mack Garrison (28:50)
Right.
Be
focused on the likes, be focused on the following count, things like that. When at its core, mean, honestly, Lo, I think we discovered you. I found you just through social media, right? I think I found it on LinkedIn or not LinkedIn, Instagram, I think. And so there is a good part of it, right? There's finding great artists, finding that inspiration, the stuff you're into. I know so many folks who are coming to our event are so inspired by what you've accomplished and the work that you're doing. Who are you inspired by?
Lo Harris (29:02)
Great.
Mack Garrison (29:26)
Who were some of the creatives out there that really light up Lo Harris?
Lo Harris (29:29)
So I've been getting really into world building recently. And so I've started collecting, compiling interviews with artists, video. I always recommend, if there's someone you admire, go look for interviews. It is illuminating. So artists I admire. And the ones that I'm really looking at right now, I told you a little bit about my munchies and planet Prisvara. I'm really looking at Sesame Street. I'm looking at Jim Henson and the Muppets.
Mack Garrison (29:32)
Mmm.
Yeah, yeah.
nice.
Lo Harris (29:59)
I'm really looking at people who have built universes and building a universe doesn't have to be this big thing. It's almost like I think the cool thing about the universe of like the Muppets, for example, or Sesame Street is that there is, and this goes back to inclusion, there is an opportunity for any kind of person to kind of see a bit of themselves in at least one of the characters. And it's not like a moralizing thing either.
Mack Garrison (30:20)
Yeah.
Hmm.
Lo Harris (30:29)
it's not like they're the villain or it's not like no one is a villain. Everyone just gets to be their weird selves and they can identify and project onto a different character and they're all still a part of the same community. So I've been very, very interested in.
Mack Garrison (30:38)
I love that.
Lo Harris (30:44)
people who build worlds that way and build characters that people can really attach to, you know, and there are more contemporary examples, right? Like Adventure Time or like Steven Universe, you know, but I just, I just feel like there's a lot to learn as, as a creative from people who work in cartoons and people who work in, you know, children's television, because that's kind of the fundamentals of like getting people involved. There's so much you can learn from
Mack Garrison (30:53)
Sure. yeah.
Lo Harris (31:14)
of the golden age of children's television. Like you think about Hey Arnold, that was iconic. That was an iconic show. It's like so accurate to like New York. Like, you know what I mean? Growing up in New York from what my friends have said.
Mack Garrison (31:19)
yeah.
my gosh, amazing.
yeah, I still remember random episodes like
Stoop Kids afraid to leave the stoop, know, knocking off, you know, these weird episodes that just stick in my brain still years later.
Lo Harris (31:35)
Yes, and like you can kind of see like even just like, you know, I talked a bit about like my involvement with this organization called the Canne Can Diversity Collective, even being able to see different people of different cultures just kind of represented, not in a weird tokenizing way, but just like let people be and appreciate the differences. Just let people be. I think that that's really powerful.
Mack Garrison (31:50)
Sure.
I love the world building concept too and it just feels like a natural evolution for kind of the low Harris world. Just again, going back to like that digital shelf idea, got all these different pieces out there. It feels like a good expanse. Now, not to put you on the spot here because I know we still have what four months or so till the dash bash. So you don't have to have a topic solidified yet. But as far as a little teaser, is there anything that folks who maybe are considering coming to the dash bash or considering to come see you.
you know, that you could tease out on like, this is what I'm going to talk about. This is why you should come hear my speech.
Lo Harris (32:33)
So I actually am gonna turn it back on either you or the Dash audience because I had a realization for myself recently that when I enter spaces and I come to speak, it is very important that I'm serving the space and the actual needs and concerns and.
Mack Garrison (32:38)
Alright.
Lo Harris (32:50)
curiosities of the people that I'm coming to speak to. And I don't want it to be a thing where it's like, I'm gonna come and talk about myself because you can go read it. You could go read all that on the internet. So I would actually, I'm still pondering it because I am trying to kind of do some like social research among some of my peers to really understand, look, I got a lot that I could sit up there and talk about on stage for 45 minutes, but what's gonna be helpful for you? What do you think? You know what I mean? People really need to hear from me.
Mack Garrison (33:07)
Yeah.
No, it's a good question. We might
have to, we'll have to open up the comments on this video to see what people want to suggest. I know selfishly something that I've just feel incredibly impressed by with your growth over the years, Lo, is just your ability to navigate change while staying authentic to yourself, but also be open to the next medium or the next technological challenges around the corner. Cause I think something that is pervasive in our space.
is change. You know, we're just navigating a lot of it right now. Even our industry compared to 10 years ago feels different. And so I think as someone who has navigated change successfully and has kind of gone with the flow for both your personality and what you're interested in, but also what the industry demands, I think there's a lot of conversation that could be happening there, but that's just, again, that's just my take. So there's plenty of others and I can't wait to hear what everyone else has to say. So everyone listening, this is your cue. You have not gotten dash match tickets yet.
Lo Harris (34:05)
Yeah.
Mack Garrison (34:13)
make sure you join us this summer, June 11th through 13th, 2025. The Dash Bash is a great place to connect with other like-minded individuals, share ideas, and really find an inclusive space for the motion design community to have deep, honest, and helpful conversations. We've been speaking today with Lo Harris, who is a multidisciplinary artist known for her bold, colorful, and empowering artwork, and we cannot wait to have you this summer at the Bash Lo. Thanks so much for the teaser today and for joining us on this interview.
Lo Harris (34:39)
Thank you so much for having me. I'm super excited to see y'all and I hope it's warm.
Mack Garrison (34:44)
It's going to be warm because we are in the South and in North Carolina. Hopefully it's not too warm. Thanks, Lo Thanks, everyone.
Lo Harris (34:48)
You
Reece Parker Interview
Ahead of his 2025 Dash Bash talk, Reece Parker and Mack Garrison chat about Reece's journey from a self-taught animator to a professional in the motion design industry. He discusses his early passion for drawing, the transition to animation, and the challenges he faced in finding work. Reece emphasizes the importance of mentorship, the need to adapt to industry changes, and the value of genuine passion in attracting clients. He also reflects on his creative influences, the exploration of new avenues like tattooing, and the excitement of future projects.
Takeaways
Reese prefers authenticity over trying to sound cooler.
His journey into animation began with a love for drawing.
He taught himself motion graphics out of desperation.
Cold emailing led to his first freelance job.
Mentorship played a crucial role in his development.
Passion for work attracts clients and opportunities.
Adapting to industry changes is essential for growth.
Inspiration can come from various creative fields.
Tattooing has similarities to motion design in terms of artistry.
The importance of being confident yet humble in new spaces.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Reese Parker
01:43 The Journey into Animation
05:11 From Hobby to Profession
10:44 Finding Mentorship and Guidance
15:32 Adapting to Industry Changes
20:00 Creative Stories and Experiences
22:45 Inspiration and Influences
25:43 Exploring New Creative Avenues
29:55 Looking Ahead to the Future
Transcript:
Mack Garrison (00:00)
Hey, what's up y'all? Mack Garrison here with Dash Studio and boy, do I have a good one for you today. I'm hanging out with a talented Reece Parker doing an interview for our Dash Bash Speaker Series. Reece is incredibly talented, also a nice guy, but Reece is a creative person making art for cool people and businesses, directing, illustrating, animating. He's uneducated, lacks any in-house experience and works way too much and has been riding solo for the last nine or so years.
guessing his way through it and loving every minute of it. I'm just reading that off Reece's bio, but Reece, welcome to the podcast, the video cast. You gotta explain yourself a little bit on that introduction and like why those were the choice of words to start us off.
Reece Parker (00:47)
Yeah, I'm happy to be here. Thanks for having me, Mack. I'm excited to chat and just be involved, honestly. I think, yeah, I don't know. The intro is like, I'm a very let my work do the talking kind of a guy, I think. So when it comes down to making a bio, it just felt very real. And I guess that's what I prefer over maybe trying to make myself sound cooler than I am. If I want to look cool, go watch my work. And some people think that makes me look cooler.
You
Mack Garrison (01:17)
Dude,
it is very cool work. And I also just love the authenticity. I think it speaks a lot to your personality. I've been lucky enough to know you now over the last like nine or 10 years that I've been running the studio. But yeah, there's a lot of folks who are listening and this might be their first time finding out who the heck Reece Parker is. So maybe you could just kind of take us back to like some of the early days, you know, like how did you get into animation? What is it?
Reece Parker (01:27)
Yup.
to.
Mack Garrison (01:43)
what part of animation really excites you and what's some of the work you're doing today.
Reece Parker (01:49)
Yeah, good question. Growing up I was always drawing. I feel like I've said this story too many times, I'll abbreviate, but like...
classic kind of creative story. didn't like math. I liked drawing. So there were times like in school, I would maybe fail the math test, but flip it over and draw a portrait of my teacher and they would hang it up on the wall. Like literally that did happen. And I think that that's just like represents kind of my journey growing up. But animation, like we would have sticky notes in class in like second grade and we were doing flip books and I was really into the YouTube stick figure fighting kind
era, you know, I don't know if you remember that. Yeah, that was big, big. So I had Flash and like just kind of dorked around on it when I had time growing up. Among other creative things, I painted grip tape. That's like the stuff you put on top of skateboards. I I would sell that. did paintings and graphite portraiture and just all types of creative stuff. And then I...
Mack Garrison (02:31)
Sick. Excellent. Of course.
yeah, nice.
Reece Parker (02:58)
You know, I was really good at it, but I was also like suburban home, you know, not in like a creative city per se, very like go to college. Just outside of Seattle, a little suburban town called Maple Valley. Yeah, 30 minutes away.
Mack Garrison (03:09)
Sure. Where are you from originally Reece? Where'd you grow up?
Seattle. nice. Excellent.
Shout out to Maple Valley listeners.
Reece Parker (03:19)
Maple Valley.
So I didn't have my eyes on the future of where is the creative work. I was mostly like, I do it because I love it and I probably won't get to do it as I become an adult. And then I just found my way to like...
being intro to motion graphics. Like I saw like a commercial for Coca-Cola or something that I think Seth Eckert did who runs the furrow. So there was morphs and it was like, I was like, whoa, this is cool. Yes.
Mack Garrison (03:39)
Mmm.
yeah.
You're like, whoa, what the hell is this? Like,
what is this?
Reece Parker (03:54)
Exactly. I was like, uh, I want to do that. Whatever that is. And so I learned like exactly that. And I didn't know motion graphics was whiter than just that. was like, that was what I want to do. So I learned After Effects and I learned shapes and I learned kind of those things. And I also brought my years of sketching and drawing and illustrating into kind of that. And then over the years, it sort of shaped my voice, I think, in motion. I don't Yeah.
Mack Garrison (04:21)
that's really cool. mean, like honestly,
I think with our industry, I heard this term from this graphic designer back in the day. His name was like Edward Tufte. And he talks about this like capital T theory, which I really like. It's like, we started this one point and there's like interest. for you could have been illustration. Like I love dueling, love drawing. Then you hit this T, like the capital T part of it. And it's like, Ooh, maybe I can put this in motion. So then you're starting to play around with motion or Ooh, maybe I can direct motion. You're directing. So basically you have all these T's.
Reece Parker (04:37)
Yeah.
Mack Garrison (04:49)
that make you unique. And I think motion design in our industry is probably the best collection of all these capital T's out there with these different backgrounds, different experiences. When did you know that like, like this isn't just a fun hobby, people will pay me for it. Did you have like a first job? Did you like kind of seek it out a little bit?
Reece Parker (04:51)
Yeah.
Well, I mean, again, the time where I ran into motion design, I was at sort of a critical point in just in my personal life. was skateboarding a lot. was graduated from high school. I was not in college or on a path to sort of buff the resume in any way at all. So I was like, once I recognized that, Coke hires artists to do work like this, I was like, okay, I'm just going to do that. And so I worked for like overtime for a
year, like kind of 16 hour days just non-stop just teaching myself out of really like desperation. Because again I'm coming at it like I clean bathrooms at Taco Bell and ride a skateboard. Like this isn't my world. I don't understand this world. So if I can teach myself how to do it and be that good maybe I can get hired. And so at a certain point I had like personal works and like a little portfolio built of no client work whatsoever and I'm just
just cold emailing like jobs off of job boards, not even motionographer, I don't even know that exists yet. It's like indeed and like other general job boards like I could do the work, I could do it and then finally like somebody hired me freelance for like 20 bucks an hour. I didn't know what a day rate was, I didn't know how to charge, I knew nothing. Yeah, yes.
Mack Garrison (06:28)
Sick.
didn't know the process, know anything. You were like, they just need an animation. I gotta make this sucker
for them.
Reece Parker (06:36)
Yes,
and they literally held my hand through it. I think because I was so cheap, they taught me how to do some of it. was really, it's a small little agency in New York. I forget the name of it now, but I hadn't kept up with them. Yeah.
Mack Garrison (06:41)
Wow. Was it a studio? Was it a company? An individual? what? Cool.
That's so funny. so basically
at the time you're working at Taco Bell more or less as a janitor doing animation stuff on the side and you're like, I've got to basically bust my ass on this because I don't have any education on it. It's all self-taught. And so if I'm going to win the opportunity, it's got to be through hustle essentially. Wow.
Reece Parker (07:10)
Absolutely. Yep. Just showing up, doing
the work, learning, and I was so excited and like in love with it that it's a lot of work, but it just felt like necessary. Like absolutely. Yeah, just driven.
Mack Garrison (07:23)
There's a whole generation of kids who could be looking to this listening to this videocast and they're like cool I'm not going to school. Thanks for race. You just ruined all these parents hopes and dreams No, no
Reece Parker (07:32)
I hope not. Yeah, do what you,
yeah, yeah, do what makes sense for you, you know.
Mack Garrison (07:37)
I mean, I think that is a really interesting conversation point though with so many different fields out there that do require a certain degree of higher education. I think motion design has been one of the most amenable and like welcoming kind of everybody. So you get this first kind of gig with a small agency, you would kind of crafted a smaller portfolio website of just some personal explorations.
Did you find that that first gig like really almost opened a door? was like as soon as like almost you had a client project kind of grounded in it that kind of build off of itself.
Reece Parker (08:12)
Yeah, I mean eventually it did it was a bumpy early road For your knowledge, I didn't want to just jump in freelance. I did that because I had to I asked for Internships and like staff jobs and just couldn't land anywhere because I was so Like raw talent, but no knowledge and that was a barrier that was not allowing me to pass like I was getting interviews in Seattle for like
Mack Garrison (08:19)
Mmm.
Reece Parker (08:39)
weird like leadership role like my skill set was beyond my knowledge meaning people saw my work and put me here and then expected me to be here and so i would come in for interviews and be like an intern and so it was like i couldn't land anywhere because they didn't know how to read me yes yes
Mack Garrison (08:45)
Mmm.
You had this raw talent that was like exceptional,
but you had no of the supplemental information to go along with that. So people were like, how is this guy this good, but has no idea about process or organization.
Reece Parker (09:01)
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Exactly, and I only know that in retrospect with the information I have now, but I didn't get it at the time. I was like, just like, yeah, I could do the work. And anyway, I couldn't get a job anywhere. So I had to be freelance. And then eventually, like one odd job led to another odd job. six months later led to another one and there was huge gaps in between. And then I got an email from Buck, like my first year in like down the line. And that changed everything. Once I went to go work with them in LA, they flew me
I was in studio for a few weeks. I was like booked ever since. Yeah, yeah.
Mack Garrison (09:45)
That's crazy. It's like
an actor who gets the first big gig, right? It's like, oh my God, this is it. Don't mess this up, Reece, you gotta stay focused. I love that. When I was coming along, I think a lot of people experienced that. It's really relatable in the sense that no one ever truly knows all the right process stuff. I mean, I remember my first gig I had at an agency. I remember this guy over in the corner basically yelling like, who the hell is Mack Garrison?
Reece Parker (09:50)
Yes.
Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly. Yeah, yeah.
Mack Garrison (10:14)
And what is wrong with this project file? And I had to like sheepishly raise my hand and admit that I had like comp one, comp two, comp three, layer one, layer two, was atrocious. But what was really nice about this Reece is that he took time and went through and basically showed me the way that stuff should be organized. And I'm forever grateful of it. Like, you know, I know he was upset at the time, but he took space and taught me. So question for you is, you know, during this kind of transition era, if you will, of like creative, finding your way, figuring out the structure behind it.
Reece Parker (10:17)
yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Totally. Totally.
Mack Garrison (10:44)
Did you have any mentors or did you find and reach out to people to try to get some of that knowledge?
Reece Parker (10:48)
yeah, yeah, I mean a lot of people were, as I began to get...
more hired and become more hireable. Again, I was mostly raw, intuitive talent and like my knowledge was years of putting things together over time. And like all of my clients were almost mentors at that time. I would have creative directors reach out to me and be like, I'll bring you on and I'd be like, great. And then I'd ask them like endless questions or I'd reach out, like I reached out to Alan Lasseter, one of my first years in the industry, like, dude, I love your work.
Mack Garrison (11:11)
Mmm.
Reece Parker (11:25)
and I love your position and how do you blah, blah, blah. And he was really, really sweet and responded. And I'm sure he wouldn't remember that if you told him, but he had a long list answering all my questions. I probably did that a hundred times, to be honest with you. Yeah.
Mack Garrison (11:39)
man, I love that so much. Cause
I feel like, you know, for whatever reason we, we, none of us want to look like idiots. think that's what it is, right? You're young. You don't want to reach out to someone. You don't want to bother them or you don't want to feel like your stuff isn't good enough to even be having that conversation for anyone that's listening to this that might be on the precipice of graduation, whether it's from school or like a school emotion course or something along those lines. What advice would you give?
Reece Parker (11:51)
Totally.
Yeah.
Mack Garrison (12:08)
and how to reach out to some of these folks or how to put yourself out there, the confidence to do that like you did.
Reece Parker (12:14)
Good question. mean, I think looking back at how I did it, I was mostly naive, but I was also really genuine, and I think you could feel that in my approach. I wasn't acting out of any sense of like, owe me a response. I mostly was like, you probably won't read this. that's the case, that's okay. On the off chance, you do read it. Like, I love your stuff, and that's why I'm reaching out. And I think...
that energy you can feel and it's encouraging a response. And I have a lot of students reach out to me on the flip side now where I try my best to sort of honor my early days and be really sort of spend some time answering thoughtfully to them in the same way that I maybe would have hoped earlier. But also like you can't expect.
it to go that way. You sort of have to like, I hope, but if it doesn't, it's okay and I'm going to try again. That's just how, like that energy is necessary and failure isn't failure. It's like you keep moving and pushing and eventually it'll land. Yeah.
Mack Garrison (13:20)
dude, I love that so much. I had this phrase
a couple of years ago that like I just gravitated towards that's perfection inhibits progress. I feel like so much as creatives and designers, we hold stuff in such high regard. It's like, I don't want to put anything out there until I really like it. But you think about all the times that that slows you up.
Reece Parker (13:29)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mack Garrison (13:39)
You're the student trying to perfect your portfolio. It's not quite there yet. I don't want to reach out where the studio trying to update our portfolio. it doesn't quite have all the projects, the reels, you know, at end of the day. And I think you would echo the same sentiment. People will critique whatever you put out there. You always have 20, 20 vision and doing something a little bit differently, but you just got to keep the bus moving forward, right?
Reece Parker (13:47)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely. I think I ran into that problem more recently than ever before, honestly, where it's like...
almost inhibiting productivity because I want to over organize or over calculate or over speculate or analyze and it just yeah at a certain point it's too far and you're actually getting in the way of doing the work so I'm kind of trying to remind my brain to go back to kind of the early days of like yes I want to make great work but I also just want to be productive and make it simple you know
Mack Garrison (14:12)
Mmm.
course, simplicity rules each and every day, even with your design and your compositions, I feel like every solution usually revolves about me taking stuff away versus like adding anything new. You know, I think something that's been interesting, especially over the last couple of years, know, AI is such a hard conversation to have in our industry right now. I think just by the fact that like there's more people than ever in the space, marketing companies are turning towards, or excuse me.
Reece Parker (14:38)
Yes. Yeah.
Yeah, totally. Totally, totally.
Mack Garrison (15:03)
companies are turning to investing in AI, which is taken away from marketing budgets. So everyone's kind of working a bit leaner. I think that's from studios, that's from freelancers. So for someone getting in the space, you you had this hustle and this tenacity that I think really led you to these opportunities, got you into the door and ultimately led to where you are now. Did you feel like looking back on that, that there was maybe one single piece of advice or something that seemed to work?
Reece Parker (15:07)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mack Garrison (15:32)
best when you're trying to get yourself out there. Is it the cold emails? Is it like conferences? You know, looking back on it, was there one thing like, oh, if I could do this over again, knowing what I know now, I would do X, Y, and Z.
Reece Parker (15:46)
It's hard because so much has changed, even in a short time, nine years. The landscape is different now, but what I would say through those changes, what remains is...
Mack Garrison (15:50)
Mmm.
Reece Parker (16:00)
You've got to love the work and putting that love into the work is going to attract clientele and that's true for any service. So like I spent a year rebuilding my site with a developer and just putting so much love into it kind of for no reason to be honest with you other than I really wanted it to be great. And now I'm doing sites for clients that are paying me real budgets. And I didn't do anything other than say on Instagram, I'm redoing my site and I'm here
Mack Garrison (16:24)
Whoa, that's wild, that's cool.
Reece Parker (16:30)
go check it out. It's like that's all I did. Now I have a platform at this stage in my career, but the energy in the through line is the same. Love the work that will attract the clients. It's like I don't have any formula other than that to be honest.
Mack Garrison (16:46)
Well, honestly, it's just authentic. I love that, right? It shows if you care about something, you're putting time and attention towards it. It's reflected in the final outcome. You know, from a studio owner perspective, I have a interesting question for you. You made me think of, you know, there was this long standing, I don't know if it was like a thought or long standing conviction. I think there's a good word that if you are really good at something niche down.
Reece Parker (16:54)
Yeah. Yes.
Mack Garrison (17:14)
Like get really good at this thing and that's what everyone's gonna come to you for. With all this change, you accepted, it sounds like, some of these website jobs. It's like, yeah, it's kind of what I do adjacent to it. You kind of opened it up. Do you feel like that's a change that you're starting to recognize and as you look ahead to like future reach, are you kind of open to saying yes to a bit more and should other people kind of be considering that as well?
Reece Parker (17:19)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
This is a hard conversation because you're going to land.
It's 50-50 whoever you talk to. I do not subscribe to niching down. However, I also don't subscribe to saying yes to everything. The reason I felt it was appropriate to take some of these jobs that are outside of my normal skill set or service that I usually provide for clients is because they said we want it done in a Reece way. We want your voice on it. So it wasn't me acting as some ex graphic designer. It was Reece being
Mack Garrison (17:45)
Sure, sure.
Mmm.
Reece Parker (18:13)
Reece just for a different service. And honestly, as we move through changes in this industry, we start to question what it is that is going to remain valuable for clients. And that's a hard answer. And I'm not willing to turn away projects because they're not like they're not an animated film that are like super artistic, like that might not be valuable right now for clients. And that's okay. I can still kind of be Reece on something else. So it's been really rewarding. And yes, I've had to adapt.
my mind a bit and it's hard to go like, some artists do niche and they're great but like, I don't know, I don't know. It's a hard, yeah, it's a hard question.
Mack Garrison (18:53)
What a compliment
though. mean, like that is, that's a premier place to be where it's like, look, I want your problem solving ability is essentially what they're asking for. And honestly, this is one of the biggest things that I believe motion designers should be advocating for themselves and highlighting about themselves is just how good a problem solvers we are. mean, by definition, we're, multi-disciplinary creatives who are trying to come up with analogies and metaphors for all these different things.
Reece Parker (19:01)
Yes. Yeah.
Yeah, you're right.
You're right.
Mack Garrison (19:20)
So we're naturally good at thinking on our toes and moving quick given the deadlines. And it's why I personally believe that no matter how much change happens over the next 10 and 20 years is motion designers are always going to be employable because the sheer fact that like we can navigate ambiguity, we can come up with solutions and move things forward. And so I think like that's good advice for anyone did here to who's in the space is like, okay, if the technology is changing and maybe the medium is changing, where can there be flexibility and how to kind of present myself in a problem solving way. So I love that. That's really cool.
Reece Parker (19:38)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mack Garrison (19:52)
Let's see, let's change it up a little bit. One of the things I'm really curious about, you've been in this space now, what is it, nine years? Is that what you said professionally?
Reece Parker (20:00)
Yeah, I think this is the ninth year maybe. Yeah. Yeah.
Mack Garrison (20:02)
my gosh, isn't that crazy? Doesn't it both feel
like the other day and like you've been doing this forever. It's like both like I've been here forever and I just started. I bet dollars to donuts that you've had some wild creative stories over the years from like a crazy client project to something kind of unique. Is there a story that maybe you haven't shared and we don't have to like call anyone out. We can blind it over but I just want to know a crazy industry story that we could share Reece.
Reece Parker (20:10)
Absolutely, Yeah.
Ha
Yeah, I mean, there's wild stuff, a lot of wild stuff, honestly. Maybe one of the more interesting ones was a high profile, actually this has happened multiple times, so maybe it's not even weird. But it's the case of like high profile clients, you have a specific team within that client that you're working directly with, and then at a certain stage in production.
whatever deliverable you are delivering gets to the eyes of somebody above the ladder or up the chain and like shifts everything. Like they don't seem to care at all about the progress thus far and just makes a snap decision. And I've had that result in canceling half a million dollar projects. I've had that result in redoing six figure projects entirely because one color was wrong. I mean, I've had like
Mack Garrison (21:04)
the classic stakeholder.
Reece Parker (21:28)
Wild what multiple wild wild things where it's just if this person had their eyes slightly sooner Maybe it could have saved like hundreds of thousands of dollars, but for whatever reason it just doesn't unfold that way I don't know. Yeah, so I guess that counts. Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah
Mack Garrison (21:39)
So crazy.
for sure. Absolutely. Someone spending that amount of money and then changing everything at the last minute is absurd.
And you're right, though. I mean, we've navigated stuff like that before. Or the one that always is so surprising to me is the one where the client spends time, energy and effort. You finish the project and it just never goes live. Like we've had a couple of projects we've worked on. They've just like eaten. It's just never gone out. And I'm just like, how in the world could you invest so much time and energy?
Reece Parker (22:05)
Yeah.
Yep.
Mack Garrison (22:13)
and never put something out in the world, you know, it's it's kind of bonkers.
Reece Parker (22:13)
Yup. Yup. I
like that too. Yeah, same. I don't know. I don't know. It's crazy.
Mack Garrison (22:21)
Well here, me this, I always am looking for new inspiration or finding out how folks think and how they tick. A lot of folks look up to you, Reece, for your inspiration. mean, you do some amazing work. I've got your website pulled up here. It looks phenomenal. So I don't know, maybe I need to get you to design our website. I might hire you for that too. But I'm curious, over the course of the last decade basically,
Reece Parker (22:37)
Thank you.
Let's do it.
Mack Garrison (22:45)
Who have been some of the creatives that inspired you? I know you mentioned Alan Lasseter and reaching out to him. Who are some others that you're just like, I love this studio's work or I love this person's work?
Reece Parker (22:50)
Absolutely.
Yeah, I mean, a lot of them come from sort of what I'm calling the golden age of motion design, but I think what it really was was like the little bubble within motion that was sort of the buck giant gunner era. Like my goal was to be as good as them as one artist. And that's a silly goal because it's subjective and whatever and impossible, but.
Mack Garrison (23:18)
You
Reece Parker (23:21)
I really, really looked up to a lot of those guys and still do, the ones that are kind of still doing work. And I know a lot of it shifted and pivoted and that's just the way of the world. But I look back on that era where, you know, every day there was a new piece that like absolutely blew my mind and taught me something or made inspire me to kind of try something new. That's really, really, really valuable. And I think it's different now. My inspirations now come from like...
Mack Garrison (23:35)
Mmm.
Reece Parker (23:49)
creators on social or designers that are doing logos. It's like, think I've expanded my mind a bit because I feel like at this point it's necessary and maybe that comes back in later years. I don't know.
Mack Garrison (23:51)
Mmm.
It reminds me of the the wine after coffee days, right? The Vimeo channel where you go there and there was always something new, some new inspiration. And that's where I would like collect my Vimeo likes. But I think you're right. I think there's something to be said about finding inspiration outside those traditional channels. So of course you have the Vimeos and the YouTube and now you you have Instagram and TikTok. Well, TikTok for a little bit. I think by the time this might be published, TikTok might be gone. But what are some of the other spots you look towards to inspiration?
Reece Parker (24:06)
Yep.
Yes.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yep.
Yeah, yeah.
Good question. Film, I just saw Nasferatu by Robert F. Kearney and it was like unbelievably rich. Every shot was like a painting. It's just like...
Maybe I write a movie, no I won't, but I'm just saying like, wow, I pull stuff from music and film and art and video games and life. And I'm trying to widen my horizons a bit these days, whereas before I think I was more singularly focused in an era that was really feeding me, but now it's less so and so you have to kind of go, where's the future and where do I wanna? I told my wife, I think 2025 is gonna be like a 2016.
year for Reece which is just like very self-focused doing a lot of different work experimenting a lot really productive because I think that's gonna be fruitful for the years to come.
instead of like abundant opportunity, like kind of chilling, signing checks, like they were those years too and those were great, but we gotta adapt when we need to adapt and it just feels like, you know, it's that time to really kind of explore.
Mack Garrison (25:43)
Dude, I love that the reinvestment in creative, you know, it's like almost in a way you've kind of set yourself on this path. You've been doing the path that you haven't given yourself enough time to analyze. Damn. Am I walking in the right direction? You know, like, should I be dabbling in something else? I know I saw, I think it was on Instagram maybe earlier last year about this tattoo apprenticeship where you're basically getting into tattooing is some of this kind of lending itself to kind of that exploration. Is that what kind of brought you into like trying out tattooing?
Reece Parker (25:55)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Absolutely. So I was getting tattooed often and my artist was like, I might leave this shop and go somewhere else, but if I had an apprentice maybe I'd stick around. And I was like...
I'll do it man, that sounds really interesting. Like I know how to draw, technically you can give me a pencil and I can do kind of almost anything with it. So I think that my transition and he was like, yeah, and we're like really good friends. So it was a really sweet like acceptance into an entirely different industry and they afforded me a lot.
respect based on sort of my accomplishments in the digital space. And so it was a really seamless and easy. It did not feel like starting over. It felt like, dude, come in here. We'll show you these ways. And when you need to use it, use it. So like for me, it's like five years from now. I don't know what's going on. I just cannot predict it. And if I need to fall back and like really hone in on tattooing, I absolutely can.
Mack Garrison (27:12)
That's so wild.
What do you feel like, you know, to your point, if you have a pencil, you can kind of draw something and draw whatever you can translate it over. Have there been more surprises than you realized on the relationship from like motion design into tattooing? Was there anything you're like, I didn't expect this to have this similar kind of approach, but that's cool that it does.
Reece Parker (27:31)
That's a really interesting question. Some of the...
technical aspects maybe transition in a way that you would or parallel in a way that maybe wouldn't be expected. I mean obviously learning digital software could be compared to like learning new languages. There's a lot of complexity and a lot of interesting like little tweaks and whatever. And I think the tattooing version of that is the machines and which machine and which needle and which type of ink and why and what is it doing and how is it moving and you know they're similar.
But it's also very, like it's draftsman-like. You're sketching a lot. There's a medical aspect that was the most difficult for me, by the way, because all of the art, go like, yeah, I'm art boy. But when you're like, well, this is almost surgery, so be very careful. I'm like, that's a new world entirely. I'm, you know, that, exactly. it's, yeah, connecting what does connect, but also being very reverent.
Mack Garrison (28:20)
Sure.
100%.
Reece Parker (28:37)
about the parts that are completely new and need respect.
Mack Garrison (28:40)
I
love that it's being confident, but not cocky, right? It's like, you know, being confident in your skillset, you're like, I can translate this over, but being humble to the new space you're in and making sure you're continuing to learn. I think all of us could take that advice with everything we do is like, be confident, speak our minds, say what we believe in, but also understand that we're still learning. We're still growing as well too. We don't know everything. All right, I'm put you on the spot with this question. Do you think we could get a live Reece Parker tattoo session at the Dash Bash? You wanna put, you wanna tattoo something?
Reece Parker (28:44)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Totally. Absolutely. Okay.
Mack Garrison (29:10)
on somebody on stage.
Reece Parker (29:11)
I would love to if we can figure out how to make it like above ground and not against the law. So there's like permitting and things that would have to take place before I'd be allowed to do so. But yeah, other than that, I would love to do it. And I actually, there are some people that are excited to maybe partake in that if we can kind of get it to work.
Mack Garrison (29:35)
I love it. I love it. You
heard it here. So if we can get it above grade, above par, we run a tight ship here. We'll do it legally. We'll get Reece tattooing folks. Well, Reece, thanks so much for hanging out with me today. I know a lot of folks are really excited to be hanging at the bash with you. Have you given much thought on kind of what you want to hone in on or any teasers you have for folks who might be attending?
Reece Parker (29:39)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right.
Yes, Sue.
Honestly, this is my first speaking event. I'm just excited really to be involved, honestly, and I'm also excited to get out. I've got a bunch of kids and it makes it hard to get out to these events. But I think now more than ever, it's really important just to go and be with the community and relate to each other and swap stories and all those things that sort of reinvigorate us in a way that where isolation does not afford. And in terms of what I'll be talking about,
I'm just going to keep it real exactly like my bio. You can expect my bio, but just keeping it real the whole time. Very vulnerable. I think that's my strong suit rather than technical and whatever. that's what I'm bringing. If that sounds exciting, awesome. I'm really excited to see everybody there and hang out.
Mack Garrison (30:44)
man,
we're so excited to have you. It's gonna be such a great talk. It's been great getting to know you over last 10 years, and just seeing how talented you are and how you've gotten more talented. I still feel like the best Reece is yet to come. So I can't see what you're gonna do over the next decade. For everyone listening on this, tickets are on sale right now. You can check it out at dashbash.net and you can join us June 11th through 13th, this summer, 2025 in Raleigh, North Carolina for the Dash Bash and Animation and Motion Design Festival built around creativity, inclusivity, and getting to know all the cool.
Reece Parker (30:56)
We'll see.
Mack Garrison (31:13)
people in our space. Thanks for your time, Reece. Thanks everyone for listening and we'll be back with our continued speaker series. So make sure to check them all out. Thanks everyone. Take care.
Reece Parker (31:23)
Thanks guys.