Ringling College of Art & Design Demo Duel Interview
In this conversation, Mack Garrison discusses the Dash Bash Demo Duel: a unique competition designed to showcase the talents of motion design students from Ringling College of Art and Design that will now be used at the Bash to highlight the best in the industry to crown a single champion! Guests Ed Cheetham and Dante Rinaldi share insights into the evolution of motion design education, the structure and excitement of the Demo Duel, and the importance of presenting work in a supportive environment. They emphasize the value of teaching in enhancing creative skills and the positive impact of community support in the motion design industry.
Takeaways
The Demo Duel is a competitive platform for showcasing student work.
Motion design education has evolved significantly over the years.
Teaching enhances both the educator's and students' creative processes.
The Demo Duel aims to reduce the intimidation of presenting work.
Community support is crucial in the motion design industry.
The competition format is designed to be engaging and fun.
Students are encouraged to prepare their Demo reels for industry recruiters.
Memorable moments from past competitions highlight the excitement and camaraderie.
The Demo Duel is expanding beyond the college to larger events.
Participation in the Demo Duel boosts confidence and industry readiness.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to the Demo Duel
03:49 The Evolution of Motion Design Education
07:47 Understanding the Demo Duel
10:42 The Competition Structure
15:21 Engaging the Audience
18:11 Memorable Moments from the Demo Duel
19:47 The Future of the Demo Duel
24:11 A New Chapter
Transcript:
Mack Garrison (00:00)
Hey, what's up everyone? Mack Garrison here, co-founder and director of Content of Dash, and we're back with another Dash Bash speaker series. And I'm so excited to be talking today about the founders, essentially, of what we're going to be launching at the Dash Bash this year, which is the Demo Duel I've got with me two guests who are fantastic, got all the deets for you on what the Demo Duel is. We have Ed Cheetham. He's the chair, Department of Motion Design at Ringling College of Art and Design.
Ed Cheetham (00:00)
Hey, what's up everyone? Mack Garrison here, co-founder and director of Content of Dash. And we're back with another Dash Dash speaker series. And I'm so excited to be talking today about the founders, essentially...
We have Ed Cheetham from the chair, Department of Motion Design, and...
Mack Garrison (00:26)
And then I've also got Dante Rinaldi who is the owner of Inferno VFX and so glad to have y'all hanging with me today.
Dante J Rinaldi (00:33)
Thanks,
Max. Great to be here.
Ed Cheetham (00:34)
Thank you Mack, it's great to talk to you again
Mack Garrison (00:36)
Absolutely.
Now I know both of you, we've been chatting a lot over the past year and excited to bring what has been y'all's baby of this Demo Duel to life at the Dash Bash. But before we get into that and before we get into the Demo Duel, maybe we can take it back a little ways. And Ed, I'll start with you. How did you get involved with Ringling College of Art and Design and really this motion design industry?
Ed Cheetham (00:58)
Well, it's really interesting because when I started teaching, I found out that there was a position open that Ringling was starting a computer animation department. And so I was actually at Century 3 at Universal Studios in Orlando and a friend of mine said, you should go and apply, that you'd be great at it. And so I went and I interviewed and I was actually the first faculty hired for the computer animation department. And that was in 91.
And so we started computer animation and what we were doing was more motion design because Toy Story hadn't been even out yet. So feature length film animation wasn't an option. So we were doing animated typography and title sequences and infographics. And then when Toy Story came out, we realized that in order to get our students to that level of character animation, we had to focus only on character.
Mack Garrison (01:35)
Right.
Ed Cheetham (01:51)
So we pushed aside all the stop motion and all the typography and all the experimentation and solely focused on narrative character. And so, you know, I stayed with that department and, you know, some of my students worked on the first Toy Story. yeah, yeah, it's true. And so, you know, it grew and it grew and, you it was actually called Computer Graphics initially and then.
Mack Garrison (02:06)
Wow, is that right? That's crazy.
Ed Cheetham (02:15)
You know, we realized we had to focus it and we changed the name to Computer Animation. And so I left in 98 and went back into the industry and, you know, I hired the current department head, Jim McCamble. So he owes me one and I guess I owe him one because what he did was when Ringling wanted to expand the offerings, he said, you need to bring Ed back and we need to have
Dante J Rinaldi (02:29)
I'm sure.
Ed Cheetham (02:38)
at that time what was called a broadcast design department. And so we had a lot of meetings and it was like, we can't call it broadcast design. That's way too focused. It's more motion design. And at some point they let us have our way. And in some small little way, I'd love to know that the department was kind of involved in the definition of this industry. Because we were calling that back in 2005.
Mack Garrison (03:01)
Mmm.
Ed Cheetham (03:05)
And so, you know, little by little what happened was that we defined what a motion design curriculum should be. And unlike, let's say, other schools that maybe have started with fine art and they're doing a little bit of animation, or if it's a, you know, a graphic design department that's doing a little bit of movement, we started this department solely focused on getting students into a motion design studio. So I remember saying,
Mack Garrison (03:13)
Mm.
Mm, I love that so much.
Ed Cheetham (03:34)
Yeah, I remember saying to myself, if I could get some graduates at Imaginary Forces, I did my job. And so now we have tons of students that have worked with Imaginary Forces. And it's just so impressive to see where they've gone and the kind of effect they've had in the industry already.
Mack Garrison (03:39)
That's great. That's a good place to start.
Well, we've had full-time staff from Ringling. We've had interns from Ringling, y'all, produce some amazingly talented students. And I think what's really cool, Ed is just how much the college has evolved over the years as motion design has evolved. know, it's, in my opinion, one of the fastest changing industries. It's an industry of change. We're constantly adapting new technologies, new forefronts of creative and what we're trying to push. And so I love that even as you considered what the name
the the name should be as you're moving through it kind of followed the industry, which is really great. Well, let me turn it over to you, Dante. I'd love to know a little bit about your background, know, owner of Inferno VFX, maybe tell us a little bit about that and ultimately how you got connected with Ed.
Dante J Rinaldi (04:24)
Sure.
then kind of like a journeyman, I kind of went to different industries. I was in the video game, AAA video game industry for a while, doing first person shooters on consoles, stuff like that. That was a lot of fun. And then transitioned into visual effects with companies like Digital Domain, and that was actually down in Florida. And as you know, visual effects is pretty nomadic. You you're kind of all over the world. And when the studio was closing up, we were getting ready to say, okay, going to California, going to...
Canada, wherever, Nepal, who knows where the jobs are, they send you. And Ed called me up and he's like, hey, have you ever considered teaching? And I thought, this is kind of cool. I could maybe do this for a semester or a year. And I was there for 10 years, because it's just such an experience. mean, working with Ed by itself is incredible. Working at Ringling, just incredible. The students are incredible. And I found that.
Mack Garrison (05:01)
Sure.
Ed Cheetham (05:12)
Maybe.
Mack Garrison (05:13)
Wow.
Dante J Rinaldi (05:25)
the education, you because I never taught before, teaching enhances your work and then your work enhances your teaching. So it just kept, you you kept leveling up, you know, and like, you know, staying ahead of the emerging tech and say, what's going on out there? What can we do to bring this in and help the next generation of students progress and be competitive and all that? Just an incredible experience. So.
We're still, we worked real close with that and wringling and just love the experience and now we're all together here.
Ed Cheetham (05:49)
close with that and wringling and just love the experience and now we're all together.
Mack Garrison (05:54)
I love that so much and I
love what you said Dante about how when you get into teaching it makes you a better creative I can relate to that so much because it really forces you to focus on what you're doing and why Right so many times we take for granted how much what I've just done it this way and then you start to really think like okay Why am I doing this way? How did I break it down to get to this point to think through doing that and so when you can get better about describing that
Dante J Rinaldi (06:08)
Yeah. Yeah.
Ed Cheetham (06:09)
Exactly.
Dante J Rinaldi (06:18)
Yeah. Yeah.
Mack Garrison (06:22)
Not only does it make you a better creator, it makes you better for clients because you can explain the relationship. All that stuff is fantastic.
Dante J Rinaldi (06:27)
yeah, to
know something you have to explain it and if you can't explain it you really don't know it. And your students are going to be like, hey, where am I? How did this happen? You got to know a lot. So it's great and it's a challenge and it's just a ton of fun.
Ed Cheetham (06:41)
the things that is really important that Dante's bringing up is that, like, one of the misconceptions that people have is like, go into teaching and I'm stepping out of the industry. And that is completely wrong. You're actually stepping right in the middle of the industry because, one, you do have to keep up on everything. And so now you're responsible to...
make sure all your students know as much as they possibly can so it's your job to go out into the industry learn more make more connections get better at what you do and then once again teach so you know it I find it interesting it's like oh yeah I'll retire it's like no no we don't want people who are retiring here we want people that want to do more in the industry so you know
Dante J Rinaldi (07:19)
No, it's the opposite.
Mack Garrison (07:21)
Hahaha
Dante J Rinaldi (07:23)
if i had known it was that
much work, i probably would've ch- no, i'm kidding, but...
Ed Cheetham (07:29)
It's different skill set though.
Dante J Rinaldi (07:30)
It is,
it is.
Mack Garrison (07:31)
No, I love it so much. That's fantastic. Well, let's let's pivot a little bit and let's get into what this podcast is about today, which is the Demo Duel and what the heck is it? So maybe at a high level, I get one of you at or Dante just to run us through what is the Demo.
Dante J Rinaldi (07:47)
Well, it's Ed's baby, why don't you do it,
Ed Cheetham (07:49)
Well, the way it started here is that we wanted to make sure that the students, when they left, were fully prepared to enter into the industry. That's why we do everything. That's why we have the courses that we have. That's why we have the experiences that we have. That's why we have the faculty that have the experience that can prepare these students. gosh, I don't know, is it 2000?
2008 maybe? No, no, no. We started in 2009. So 2011, 12. What we wanted to do was to make sure that the students had their work presentable for their interviews and all the recruiters that were coming to Ringling because we have amazing career services and they have recruiters coming to the campus all the time. And I found that there were a number of students that didn't have their Demo reels ready.
Mack Garrison (08:40)
You're like, what are you doing? Come on, let's get it. They're all coming here. What are you doing?
Ed Cheetham (08:40)
And in fact, they were a little... Exactly.
But they were shy and they think, I can't do it. I can't do it. And so in the senior year, we have a class called Production Studio in which we really give the students the experience of what it looks like and what it's like working in a production studio. So they have like five projects that they have to complete in 15 weeks. So that's three weeks of project. They get to choose from like 50 different briefs and...
You know, we've tried to prepare them so they're ready when they go out into the industry. And so we made this as part of our requirements, is that you have to have a Demo reel ready. So when the recruiters come, you're prepared. And so it's scary. It's really intimidating showing your work in front of people. It's not an easy situation to...
to kind of reveal your work and have people look at it. Exactly. And so I will say this department is very supportive and the students really do look out for each other and support each other and encourage each other. And so I felt it was safe enough to create this kind of competition where everybody has to have a Demo reel by a certain time. And so that's part of future proof.
Mack Garrison (09:33)
course especially to the people that are the ones that are gonna be hiring you the people that you've looked up to for all this time
Ed Cheetham (09:59)
was that we had to have our Demo reels done before that because we're having recruiters here. And so, we thought, well, how can we make it fun? And that's part of our goal is because take away the scariness, make it fun. And so we kind of put this framework in and it was like, how do we show all the reels together and kind of celebrate everybody's successes? Because I'll tell you, even,
Even the ones that get voted out in the first round, they're very impressive. They're really good. And so it's great for the students to show their work and you have all the audience clapping and cheering them on.
Mack Garrison (10:36)
I love that
you mentioned the rounds maybe explain so you know there's rounds there's competitions what's it kind of look like?
Ed Cheetham (10:42)
Yeah, it's kind of like a bracketed competition. tennis competitions where they have multiple brackets. So the first round is head-to-head competition of two students. And so we have about 30 students or 32 students. So there's 16 initial competitions. So we have one against two. We play number one, then we play number two, and then we give the audience like 20 seconds to vote online on their phone, whether they want
that whether they think number one or number two should go on. It's all happening live. And so they have their phone and they choose which one and then we show the results and that winner moves to the next round. So we see all the Demo reels in the first round. And then we, the next round instead of 16 competition, now there are eight. So we go through those eight again and then it's four and then we go through those four then it's two. Then we go through those two.
Mack Garrison (11:12)
So it's all happening live, right? People are watching this, okay.
Mmm.
Ed Cheetham (11:37)
And then we start to narrow down to those last two, and those last two define the winner and the runner-up for the Demo Duel.
Mack Garrison (11:44)
my
gosh, it's so exciting. And I will say I have been to a future proof. have seen this live and it is amazing competition. The cheering that goes on is unmatched. It's really cool. Let's see Dante. Maybe, maybe you can pull up a little visual and kind of walk us through some of the bracket and what some of the technical stuff starts to look like.
Dante J Rinaldi (12:00)
Absolutely.
All right. So yeah, so the big thing is, how do you, when we first did this game, it's like, how do you actually vote? Do you raise hands? That could be chaos and anarchy. So we got together and we said, well, maybe we could try and figure out how to do this online. So I went ahead and this was a great opportunity to kind of learn some coding and some scripting and some back end stuff.
So I'm just gonna sign in to the Demo Duel. Now we call it Demo Duel for this one, but we call the product, the overall product video Duel with online voting. And we could make this available later on. But let me just jump in and just to give you an indication of what we're looking at. So if I sign in, it's gonna say, oh, here we go. Here is one of our brackets. Now this is a work in progress, so the screens are final.
Ed Cheetham (12:47)
Oh, here we go. Here is one of our brackets. Now this is a work in progress. So the screens are final.
Dante J Rinaldi (12:53)
But this talks about DemoDuel 2024. This is kind of like what we were playing last year. 30 players and you could do anything you want to. And if we launch it, you're going to see a bunch of pirates and people are like, what the heck's with the pirates? This is an important note that Ed failed to mention. He dresses in full costume for every one of these
Mack Garrison (12:53)
Sure.
Ed Cheetham (12:53)
It talks about Demo Duel 2024. This is kind of like what we were playing last year. 30 players and you can do anything you want to. And if we launch it, you're to see a bunch of pirates. are like, what the heck's with the pirates? This is an important note that Ed failed to mention. It says in full costume for everyone in
Mack Garrison (13:05)
haha
Dante J Rinaldi (13:10)
events. you know, last year he was a pirate and the theme was pirates and people had to come as pirates and really enjoy it and have a lot of fun doing that. And I think he lost his voice with all the R's that he was yelling out.
Mack Garrison (13:11)
There we go.
Dante J Rinaldi (13:22)
you know and throwing candy so that was just uh... but on the point yeah kind of fun
Ed Cheetham (13:24)
Come on Dante!
Mack Garrison (13:26)
There we go, Ed, now we're talking.
I love that people are just as excited for the Demo Duel as we are for Ed's costume change and wardrobe change.
Dante J Rinaldi (13:31)
Yes, it's one of the highlights
Ed Cheetham (13:32)
Well,
Dante J Rinaldi (13:33)
of future proofed. Absolutely.
Ed Cheetham (13:35)
it's got to be funny though. It's got to be fun because it's so intimidating having your work being evaluated. So if we make it a party kind of environment, everyone kind of assumes that this is going to be fun and happy and joyful. And that's why there's candy being thrown. There's clapping and make it fun. And I think the students really appreciate that.
Dante J Rinaldi (13:52)
Yeah, absolutely.
Mack Garrison (13:54)
I love it.
Dante J Rinaldi (13:56)
So this is what they see when they walk in, whether the theme is pirates or musketeers, and we've done a bunch of things. They see this on the big humongous screen. I know, Mack, you're gonna have a huge screen when this is happening. Yes! Love it! Yes! So I mean, just seeing your work on a wall like that is just worth the price of admission. Just be like, my God, it was so big and so loud. So that automatically makes things a lot of fun.
Mack Garrison (14:07)
yeah, the Dash Bash is going to have a nice big 30 foot screen, highest resolution possible, great premium audio is going to be amazing.
Ed Cheetham (14:10)
Woo!
Mack Garrison (14:21)
Ha ha ha!
Ed Cheetham (14:22)
Hahaha
Dante J Rinaldi (14:26)
So when people walk in, they see the splash screen here and they get the QR code. Because the biggest thing about this game isn't that you just sit there and raise hands or applaud. You get to vote in real time on your phone and we count the votes. That's, think, one of the biggest parts of this is that it's accurate to the audience or whoever around the world is voting. And then the audience gets to actively participate in the game instead of just watching someone's game. So they...
go to the QR code, which basically gives them on their phone a ballot. And they can choose the ballots when it comes up A, B, C, whatever, just A and B really, as they go through. So once we jump in, we get to begin the Duel. And it can go through a little animation. Last year we did a little animation where it populated all the names in, randomly, and people were getting excited, I'm matching up with that person or that person.
Ed Cheetham (14:59)
And they can choose the ballads when it comes up A, B, C, whatever that is. Just A, B really. As they go through it. So once we jump in, we get to begin the duet. And it can go through a little animation. Last year we did a little animation where it populated all the names in randomly and people were getting excited, oh I'm matching up with that person or that person.
Dante J Rinaldi (15:21)
And then we kind of glitched the whole thing out like the whole thing broke, which freaked everybody out. And then it came in nice and loud. Boom,
Ed Cheetham (15:22)
And then we kind of glitched the whole thing out like the whole thing broke. Which freaked everybody out. And then it came in nice and loud.
Dante J Rinaldi (15:29)
boom, boom, boom, boom. Just kind of playing with people's emotions because we're kind of evil. We're evil like that. that all. Yeah, it switches up. Boom, right? So this is kind of like halfway through the Duel itself. And this was a Duel of 30 students and 32.
Mack Garrison (15:32)
I love it. I love it. It's great. Just people just as soon as people think they know who they're competing against it switches up on them.
Dante J Rinaldi (15:51)
So some people got free passes, but basically what the gist is is in every round You see who's there and you can click on you know the battle itself Which brings up the two people they get avatars they get to import their names their videos all that kind of stuff We play the videos which I'll just click real quick and hit escape
So that was super impressive. Everybody's like, yeah, that's amazing. We play video B over here.
Ed Cheetham (16:15)
Yeah, that's amazing. We played video B over here.
Dante J Rinaldi (16:22)
That was very nice. And now people have to vote and then they get a timer. you know, screens are a little temp right now, the fonts are different. But then we put on the music that's like, you know, the Jeopardy music and people are really getting tense and nervous, whatever the case may be. Because, you know, it's nerve wracking. Absolutely.
Ed Cheetham (16:24)
And now people say it has to vote and then they get a timer. know, screens are a little tense right now, the font are different. But then we put on the music that's like, you know, the Jeopardy music and people are really getting tense and nervous, whatever the case may be. You know, it's, it's, it's, it's more of a record. You know, I will,
Mack Garrison (16:36)
guys.
Of course.
Ed Cheetham (16:41)
I will say how important the audio is because we have our, our sound designer and audio engineer here, Kelly Warner, and he plays music while this is going on and doing the countdown.
Mack Garrison (16:44)
Mmm.
nice.
Dante J Rinaldi (16:53)
Yes,
yes, yeah.
Ed Cheetham (16:54)
and all the fun effects, which is really
fun. He really enhances the whole experience.
Dante J Rinaldi (16:59)
So once the timer is over and all that's customizable to your game, you want 20 seconds, you want five seconds, whatever the case may be, then the big thing is behind the scenes after everybody voted on their phone, on their ballot, and like for example, this is bracket 11, I'll go to bracket 11, and I like B, so I'll do that, there's B, it's success. You can't like spam the vote, it goes away. You can't, you can even.
Mack Garrison (17:16)
Cool.
Mmm, that's it.
One vote and it's done.
Dante J Rinaldi (17:23)
It's done. If I refresh my phone and be like, no, you already voted, know, that kind of a thing. Sorry. Already voted. So we try and keep the cheating to a minimum. So then when you view the results, it's in real time and it says, whoa, who won? Nicholas won. Hooray. And so it's it's absolutely accurate to that. You go back to the bracket, automatically adds Nicholas in there and the fight goes on and everyone goes back and turns. It is.
Ed Cheetham (17:32)
You
Mack Garrison (17:33)
haha
I love it. It's the March Madness style bracket for motion design.
It's so
Dante J Rinaldi (17:53)
It is,
Ed Cheetham (17:54)
That's it.
Mack Garrison (17:54)
great. I love it. What do you feel like has been your favorite moment from putting these on Ed and Dante? Like, is there something that resonates, like a particular competition or a win that sticks out? Is there something that you just really gravitate towards when you think about this?
Dante J Rinaldi (17:54)
yes.
Ed Cheetham (18:11)
I remember one. And it was a good thing that we had our guest judges because the last round, it was tied.
Dante J Rinaldi (18:19)
Remember this.
Mack Garrison (18:22)
my goodness.
Dante J Rinaldi (18:23)
There was
a lot of people voting. It wasn't like 10 people. Yeah. And it came up perfectly even and said, there's a tie. And the crowd went nuts.
Ed Cheetham (18:25)
Yeah, mean, there's at least 150 people voting and it was tied.
Mack Garrison (18:33)
Wow.
Ed Cheetham (18:35)
And so we had we have a lot of recruiters that like to come for that evening because they can see everybody's work all at once right and so we had We had the recruiters come in and we had to make them Choose and there were two people from the studio It was Hue and Cry and so we had two people from the studio and they both picked the each one and so we split the prize so
Mack Garrison (18:52)
Nice.
You split it the co
Dante J Rinaldi (18:58)
Yeah.
Mack Garrison (18:59)
champions was that
the first ever co-champion that y'all have had for the Demo Duel. my gosh, how fun
Ed Cheetham (19:01)
Good.
That was, yeah.
Dante J Rinaldi (19:06)
We have like a trophy. I don't know if the trophy's around, to keep inscribing the names in the years of who wins the Demo deal, because it's gotten really popular on campus. It's like, you know, all the future proof week, the convention week is exciting, but Ed's invention of this game is like the highlight and the kids just go nuts, you know.
Mack Garrison (19:25)
I love it. Well, let me ask you all this. So it clearly has been such a big thing for Ringling. It's grown. Everyone knows about it. Everyone gets excited about it. How does it feel to see this start to evolve? know, coming out now at the Bash, it's going to be happening this year here and hopefully in the future, maybe even more places. How do you all feel seeing it kind of evolve elsewhere?
Dante J Rinaldi (19:47)
man, this is just awesome. This is like you're raising your little kid and then they're going off to college and now everyone's gonna see how amazing you think your kid is and that kind of thing. And when you came to us and you were at, I think last year, and you're like, hey, this is fun, this is cool. Let's bring this to our thing. And we're like, absolutely. And to see this thing out into the wild, and I can't wait to see how the crowd likes it because there's just so many.
Mack Garrison (20:02)
This is fun, it's great stuff.
Dante J Rinaldi (20:13)
avenues to explore with this type of format. It doesn't have to be just student reels. Like for example, Mack what you're going to be doing with this is a variation and there's infinite variations that people can say, I like this one versus that one. So that's just so exciting to see.
Mack Garrison (20:29)
I love it And you know what's interesting to me, and this is gonna put the industry on blast a little bit, they better be prepared and be ready to submit some good reels because the students, as we now know, Ed is making them submit for the Demo Duel. You know, it's free to enter the Dash Bash Demo Duel. So I expect to see some good wrinkling reels in there. And I tell you, there's a lot of experience, a lot of practice working and cutting together a reel. And I know our industry sometimes...
Reels kind of become on the back burner when you're doing projects for clients and you got all this thing going on. like, I got to cut together something. So we could see a potential Ringling or other student champion who is focused on reels if the industry doesn't show up, which could be really, really exciting, you know, I'm calling them out, calling you out industry. So maybe Ed, you mentioned this earlier, but I'll toss it back to you. Why do you think someone should enter? Cause you're right. This,
Dante J Rinaldi (21:09)
Yeah, yeah, you're calling him out. You're calling him out.
Mack Garrison (21:22)
is gonna be put on blast, you are gonna be at the event in front of all your peers. What do you think's the biggest takeaway? Why do you think anyone watching this video should consider entering the Dash Bash Demo Duel?
Ed Cheetham (21:35)
Well, know, like I experienced with the students, I think we're our worst self-critics, right? We just don't think our work is good enough. But when you separate yourself from it and you put your work out there, you realize, I'm pretty damn good, right? And, you know, I think you see your work with fresh eyes and you appreciate your work. And I think that's really kind of nice when you're able to sit back and go,
Mack Garrison (21:51)
Hahaha.
Ed Cheetham (22:03)
You know, yeah, I know what all the problems are. I know what all the struggles were. But when you don't have that baggage and you just look at your work, you know, you realize, I did pretty good. I really like that. And you know, everybody's clapping. Everybody wants to cheer. Everybody wants to support. I mean, that's the thing about this motion design industry that just blows my mind, you know, is that everybody wants to help each other. They share information. They support one another. And so I think that you might think it's
it's kind of negative, you know, if you don't win. But you just think, you see the response and it's positive response and you you get your workout in front of so many people and you realize, yeah, I'm pretty good. And it's gonna spark interest in at least one person and you never know where that's gonna go, you know.
Mack Garrison (22:47)
100 % 100
it's well said. You know, I think there's a reminder for us all that we are like you mentioned our own self critics our own best self critic, right? We we we are critical. We want to put out the best of the best but I think something that's a good reminder for us all is that sometimes perfection inhibits progress. We got to keep things moving forward. Put yourself out there. Stop and pause and not what you didn't do but look at what you have done and look at the reel
Dante J Rinaldi (23:14)
Yeah.
Mack Garrison (23:16)
Super excited. Well, everyone, thanks so much for tuning in and listening today. I've been chatting with Ed Cheetham. He's the chair, Department of Motion Design, Ringling College of Art and Design. If you don't know Ringling, you need to know Ed and you need to know the work that their students are producing. We've also got Dante with us as well. He's the owner of Inferno VFX and they have put together an awesome platform for the Demo Duel, which is gonna be launching at the Dash Bash this summer. So on our website, we're gonna end up having the top 16 reels compete live at the Dash Bash this summer.
Dante J Rinaldi (23:17)
Okay.
Mack Garrison (23:45)
for your chance to be crowned the Dash Bash champion. This is open to students, it's open to professionals, you need to submit, not as a studio, this is on you. So this is all the individuals out there submitting and we cannot wait to see all these reels that are submitted. Ed, Dante, thanks so much for hanging with me today. Thank you so much for walking through the Demo Duel and we cannot see, cannot wait to see what it all looks like when it comes together this summer.
Dante J Rinaldi (23:48)
Woo!
Yes.
Ed Cheetham (24:04)
Thank you, Mack.
Dante J Rinaldi (24:07)
Awesome
awesome. Thanks buddy awesome being here
Ed Cheetham (24:08)
That's great. you.
Mack Garrison (24:10)
Yeah, thanks everyone.
Lasso Studio Interview
In this conversation, Mack Garrison interviews Lindsay and Alan Lasseter, co-founders of Lasso Studio, about their journey in motion design and branding. They discuss their early experiences in the field, the challenges and joys of running a creative studio as a married couple, and the importance of authenticity in client relationships. The Lasseters share insights on their unique creative process, memorable projects, and the significance of trust and community in their work. They also reflect on their experiences with major clients like Apple and the lessons learned along the way, emphasizing the value of connection and collaboration in the creative industry.
Takeaways
Lasso Studios was founded in 2020 by Lindsay and Alan Lasseter.
Their early experiences in motion design shaped their creative journey.
Balancing work and family life is a priority for the Lasseters.
Authenticity is key in building client relationships.
Trust between clients and studios enhances project outcomes.
Memorable projects often stem from strong client connections.
The creative process is unique to each project and client.
Community and connection are vital in the creative industry.
Lessons from working with major clients can reshape studio practices.
Events like Dash Bash foster learning and collaboration among creatives.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Lasso Studios
02:02 Early Experiences in Motion Design
05:02 The Birth of Lasso Studios
07:07 Navigating Work-Life Balance as Partners
09:07 The Unique Style and Process of Lasso Studios
11:59 Authenticity in Client Relationships
15:09 Memorable Projects and Client Connections
19:47 The Importance of Trust in Client Partnerships
24:00 Lessons from Working with Major Clients
29:01 The Value of Community and Connection at Events
Transcript:
Mack Garrison (00:00)
Hey, what's up everyone? This is Mack Garrison, co-founder, director of content over at Dash, and we've got another speaker series interview with the talented studio, Lasso Studios, a husband and wife partners, Lindsey and Allen Laseter. They are co-founders and co-creative directors of Lasso Studio. I'm sure that doesn't get complicated. Co-creative directors, no butting heads there. Out of Nashville, Tennessee, since 2020, they've worked together to merge their passions and branding, design, and animation.
serving clients ranging from local clients and nonprofits they believe in to powerhouse brands, including Apple and more. As partners in both business and life, they are building their studio intentionally to balance raising a family, building the life they desire and creating a foundation that can hold steady when life shifts in major and unexpected ways. Ooh, I'm excited. Allen, Lindsey, so good to see you all. I know you both. Thank you so much for hanging out with us today and introducing yourself to the dash bash.
Audience.
Lasso (00:58)
Absolutely. Thanks for having us, Mack, and inviting us to the Dash Bash. This will be our first time. Yeah.
Mack Garrison (01:02)
Is this really your first time? my gosh. One,
disappointed you haven't been before. But two, incredibly excited that y'all are gonna be joining us this year. I think folks are really in for a treat. I've known you both now for a long time. Lindsey, you and I are in the producers channel. We talk regularly. And Allen, I swear Allen, I tried to hire you for like years. You're the most booked up freelance contractor I've ever met in my life. I think literally for five years Dash tried to hire you and we were never able to do it because you're always booked up.
Lasso (01:31)
Yeah.
Mack Garrison (01:32)
Well, let's hop into it. I'd be curious from y'all's perspective. It's always interesting to me in motion design because it's such an eclectic mix of people from different backgrounds who kind of find their way into this space. I'd be curious from y'all's perspective, what are some of those earliest moments of motion design? When did you kind of realize, this is a cool field to be in? And I could toss that. We'll start off with you, Allen, and then we can go over to you, Lindsey.
Lasso (01:58)
Yeah, think my first, my truly first experience with motion was actually, I was just kind of thinking about this earlier, was working with a company I used to work for full time. That's right. Red Pepper, here in Nashville, and I didn't really know what I was doing, but I had a friend who knew After Effects and he had shown me a little bit of stuff and Red Pepper needed someone to just like make some little graphics move for like a...
Mack Garrison (02:13)
nice.
Lasso (02:28)
type video for some company and so I like jumped into like some really kind of simple what is it kinetic type kind of stuff so that was kind of like yes totally yeah and so I kind of that was like kind of my first kind of dipping my toe into the waters kind of memory and then my
Mack Garrison (02:38)
yeah, classic, classic. It's the gateway animation to animation is kinetic type.
Lasso (02:55)
My first full-on motion experience was doing some intro titles for a Google conference in Nashville in, what was that, 2013 or something like that, That was another thing where I had just a little bit of experience. The project fell into my lap and I was just thrown to the deep end. That was like it.
Mack Garrison (03:05)
wow.
Was your background always
design, Allen? Did it start kind of with design and creative and then there was this kind of like moment or two that you got into the motion side of it?
Lasso (03:26)
I was more like specifically like live-action like I really wanted to like be a director like for like live-action like film that kind of thing and I just kind of yeah stumbled into motion through that.
Mack Garrison (03:28)
Mmm, okay.
super cool. And I feel like I feel like everyone's got that friend. It's like, hey, look at this cool thing I made. You want to do something similar? You're like, yeah, that sounds kind of fun. How about how about you, Lindsey? What was kind of your early experience with the animation space?
Lasso (03:43)
Total it. Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, honestly, it came through Allen. We met at art school and we literally lived across the hall from each other. And that's how we got introduced. And Allen was studying film and I was studying graphic design. We both had transferred into college. This was kind of like our second go around, right? Of like the first thing we were both studying. Allen originally studied graphic design, though, too. So I think it's interesting all the overlapping. And so, yeah, really for motion.
Mack Garrison (03:54)
nice.
Okay
Lasso (04:17)
And I think what I remember most was like recognizing how much power that could have. Like he mentioned the agency job that I had more in the advertising realm. But what was really cool for me in experiencing it was seeing Allen's shift and discovering it was something that he really loved and recognizing like it was a direction that he could take because.
Mack Garrison (04:34)
Mm.
Lasso (04:39)
Just being able to watch him develop his skills for it was really my real introduction. And yeah, like to your point of like someone sharing what's inspiring them, I feel like that was a really special way to be introduced to it and to get really inspired by a world that was definitely not my own.
Mack Garrison (04:53)
I love that.
What was the college that y'all met at?
Lasso (04:57)
It's called Watkins College of Art and Design and Film. Yeah, yeah.
Mack Garrison (04:59)
How cool. Nice. Do they still
have the art design program and all that stuff still run strong? Cool.
Lasso (05:05)
They do. I'm actually teaching
my first class there. They're part of Belmont University now and so yeah it feels fun to be kind of back into yeah college world.
Mack Garrison (05:14)
That's super fun. That's great. You go find a major that you love and you find a life partner. I feel like that's a, that's a huge win from going to school. So that's great. So y'all are, y'all are dating, you're creative, you're doing all this stuff. When was kind of this moment that was like, maybe, maybe we should start a studio. Maybe we make this more. Cause if I'm not mistaken, you were both kind of independent contractors for a bit, or maybe Lindsey, you were in house for full time. Like when was it this idea of like, let's, let's pull together a studio.
Lasso (05:22)
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean it was 2020 and I think for most people that was when like life, like oh life could be different kind of revelations came up and so for us I think a big reason was we had had our daughter at that point and I did have like worked in agency, boutique studio, in-house as a creative director and
was working freelance for probably about six months before that. And it was like proof to us of like, we can work in the same space, like, and know that we could still have a good relationship. And so really an opportunity came to us very beginning of 2020 for rebranding Nashville Design Week. And yeah, it was really a casual, I was telling Allen about it and it was like, wow, it would be really fun to take like what we just genuinely love.
Mack Garrison (06:25)
Fun.
Lasso (06:34)
being like branding and identity systems and motion and illustration. And there was so much freedom with that project. It really was a dream in that way of like a lot of trust. We are getting to create something that is for the creative community itself. And so there was so much freedom. And I think that was honestly the best way that it could have started out for us.
Mack Garrison (06:52)
Nice. It's
always good when it starts on like a project that you really love, right? And when it goes smoothly, you're really proud of it. You're like, dang, could I just do this more? Like, how do I do this more? You know, I find it so interesting, just being partners and working together. You know, how do y'all navigate that work life balance? Is it one of those things where like you kind of leave work at work and when you're off, it's like, look, we can't talk about the same work because we always talk about work. Or is it just part of life that that is just always around and y'all kind of just lean into that?
Lasso (07:01)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, we kind of, think it's just kind of a juggle and we go in, you know, ups and downs of like being really good at the, you know, leaving work at work thing. And then we get into times where it becomes all consuming, you know, just kind of depending on how busy things are and what any given project requires. But the ideal is, we keep our work to pretty specific work hours. And, you know, we try to like be pretty intentional about hanging out as a family.
as much time as we possibly can and in those times work just doesn't come up naturally and then by the time we put our kids to bed we're like we can't we don't have any bandwidth to talk about work. it kind of lends itself to having a natural separation there.
Mack Garrison (07:51)
Sure
That's good. I'm glad
y'all aren't like that super, super couple that's just like on point all the time. Cause like I get home and I have to disconnect. just talk all day, do stuff all day. I'll just like, you know, veg out on the couch with my phone. So glad to know that y'all are human as well and doing that too.
Lasso (08:15)
Yeah, it's been interesting just like over the years learning how to communicate with each other in that way and like even helping each other of like remembering like hey this is not the time for this like we can move this to tomorrow and and supporting each other too of like we really did start the studio so that we could have like this balance that wasn't existing previously and so it's nice to be able to support each other in that.
Mack Garrison (08:24)
Yeah.
I love that. Well, I got y'all's website pulled up and I'm try to do my best to describe what I'm looking at on y'all's work to audiences listening to this. But you you have such like a funky style and I don't know how to describe this other than it one is incredibly unique. It feels old but modern, right? You're tapping into this kind of retro feel but it also feels really progressive and forward focus. It's such a good unique mixture of like compositions but there's such a sense of brand.
and branding that comes into it, of course, as being a brand studio and emotion studio. You know, how do you all I'm so curious about y'all's process, you know, because I think there's a lot of typical motion studios out there that might feel a little bit similar on their process. But for a group that has such keen insight on branding, maybe you could walk me through just like what does it look like on a project when you get something and it may be a high level.
Lasso (09:34)
I mean, it really depends on the client and on the end result. And that puts us into like, okay, who's owning since we're both creative directors and deciding like how that should go about. really, I think.
There is so much behind the scenes of like the years that both of us have been like honing in and especially for Allen as like the illustration that he brings and just his unique approach to motion. It feels like there's a lot of beauty of the work that's been building to that so that it can come more naturally in our process now. And we definitely like whether it's like a brand forward or a motion forward project, like we're like, okay, this is essentially the steps that we're gonna start moving in towards. But really, I think one of the big
things is connecting to the intent of the project, connecting deeply to the clients and creating a good flow with them. then, I mean really for the creative, I think one of the most important things is trying to get into the mindset and the flow where we can actually trust our own instincts.
Mack Garrison (10:30)
Mm-mm.
I love that. Anything you wanna add to that, Allen?
Lasso (10:34)
Yeah, I feel like one of the other things that kind of makes our process unique is that like, think, and this is something we're still kind of trying to figure out is...
Because when we first started, really saw ourselves, what was exciting to us was being able to not be a studio that does motion and also branding, but have those things integrated from the very beginning. And we've had a few projects like that, but obviously it's a little bit more of a niche kind of, you know.
market I guess for that. So that kind of makes things interesting. like when we don't have a project like that, like how do we keep like, how do we keep it like collaborative and working together as opposed to like, well you go do this, I'll go do this kind of thing. So that is something that we're kind of constantly having to think about a lot. Sure.
Mack Garrison (11:02)
Yeah.
Mmm.
Honestly, I think everyone is to a certain degree on like systems and process
type stuff. It's one of those things like you're like, you find something, it works super well, you keep doing it then you're kind of at this new place where you're doing new work and you're like, man, maybe we need to tweak this a little bit, right? I think something that I get from both of y'all just immediately is just so much authenticity, just even in our conversation today, I've met both of you in person, you are who you say you are, I can just get the vibe of how it's like working with you.
You know, how much do you feel like that aspect of it plays in, you know, to the work you do? Like if someone's out there thinking about starting their own studio, like, do you feel like it's pretty important to kind of understand just like your vibe and how you work and kind of your personality equally as as important as the work that you do?
Lasso (12:07)
Absolutely. I think that is one of the key components of like when people are hiring you like they're not just hiring your studio they're hiring like the essence of what you're bringing and what the relationship while you're working together can be like so I think that is such a key component.
And yeah, I remember like early days of my career and you know, places that I dreamed of working and eventually did get to work where they were just like, really, I want, you know, ideally we're not working together late at night on a project. Those times come sometimes and I want to work with someone that I'm going to have like just really good feelings about. Like we get to make that choice. So yeah, absolutely.
Mack Garrison (12:38)
Right.
I love that. go ahead, Allen.
Lasso (12:51)
Well, no, no, yeah, I don't have much to add other than for me it just kind of comes down to I think I think of it, try to keep it simple and just try to be honest in every part of life. And this mode where you start feeling like you have to perform or project a certain image, it just puts so much pressure on you. And so for me, it's like, yeah, just...
It's like hard sometimes because even when you're trying to like there's like a trap you can fall into where it's like well I want to be seen as authentic and so then you're like Doing a little dance to like make people think wow. I'm so honest I just try to like and I think we've kind of built this into our city like just try to be honest like in everything whether we're talking to a client whether we're talking to other
studio owners or whatever. A lot of the stuff kind of falls into its place itself if you just kind of approach it.
Mack Garrison (13:44)
falls into his place
or falls flat. feel like I've made some jokes on some like corporate client calls and they're nothing there. I'm like, okay. It's a test.
Lasso (13:49)
Yeah, there you go. There is always that. But even that, I
mean, I would rather that than like have to, again, like uphold this like kind of image, kind of project. Yeah.
Mack Garrison (13:57)
Right, man, that's so accurate, that's so honest and
so much truth to that. here's a good question for y'all. You we talked about the Nashville Design Week and just how that felt like such a good project and a perfect fit for y'all and really was a jumping point into becoming Lasso. I'm curious, looking back at your career thus far, if there's any other projects you're really proud of, either from a creative standpoint or just that.
client relationship we're talking about where the work looked good. Maybe it wasn't the best out there, but there was such a good relationship that was really enjoyable. Anything else stick out to you all besides the Nashville Design Week project.
Lasso (14:30)
Yeah, I've got my answer. I'm curious what yours would be. The thing that's come into mind is it's funny because it's one of the projects that we had a little bit lighter kind of involvement in.
at least in proportion to all the work that was done with it because it was kind of a collaboration of different creative studios in Nashville but really cool little wine bar restaurant in Nashville called Bad Idea. got to collaborate with some super amazing creative people here in town and like a lot of our work and before we started our studio like the...
huge majority of my work as a freelancer was with people outside of Nashville, which is awesome. And I still am so thankful for the ability to be able to work with people all over the world. But there's something really cool about doing some work for a place in town that's trying to do something cool in and of itself and like seeing the work come to life, like in brick and mortar and seeing people that you live close to like interact with in that kind of way. So that's been, that's been a really cool one for me. Yeah.
Mack Garrison (15:23)
I love that.
Lasso (15:24)
Yeah, honestly, like the first time that we went and like actually had a date and ate there. Because from the first time we had the conversation with the owner, Alex, he actually reached out to us because of Nashville Design Week. That's how he found out about us.
Mack Garrison (15:36)
cool, nice.
Lasso (15:37)
It was just a perfect example of someone who is like, we want what you do. I want what you do and I'm just going to trust you to do it. And it was really encouraging too, just to witness him as a client doing that with so many other people that are a big part of the Nashville creative community and people that we consider good friends. So yeah, I would definitely agree with that one.
Mack Garrison (15:57)
I feel like it's one of those things and I'm sure you all have been asked this question as well. I think every creative kind of gets asked it at certain point. What is, who's your dream client? Who is the ideal client you want to work with? And my answer, and it sounds like I would echo the same sentiment is always like, it's less about like the industry or the client. It's like, is there trust?
Do we have a good working relationship? Because you can make anything exciting and fun if there's that partnership of like, let's get into it. I love your style. This is what I know about it. This is what I our customers want. And you have that back and forth. That trust is so key.
Lasso (16:29)
Yeah.
100%. And I think it's been fascinating, like all the different types of clients that we've been fortunate to work with and being able to channel in to that element. And I think that you can, as we've been doing this over the years, it's like we can like tell, you know, even from like very first conversation of, you know, is that there, knowing what questions to ask, and then if it's not a good fit, like sending them to someone who we think it would be like really great for what they need. And so yeah, it's.
that's so important and it's such a gift when you have it.
Mack Garrison (17:02)
There's such a vibe on that initial conversation and I love that. I wanna pull that thread a little bit. What are some of the questions that you ask right up front that you feel like kind of sets the tone on like whether this could be a good relationship or not? Is there any that come to mind? It's like a go-to question y'all ask over and over.
Lasso (17:18)
Yeah, I think it really is more like getting a personal connection to them of, know, we've tested and I handle like new business development and connecting to our clients and potential clients. So letting it be like less formal, honestly, is where I feel like it helps a lot. And just really just asking questions and letting them speak and not controlling the conversation so much and, you know, letting it...
letting them dive into like, why do you want to do this? Why does it matter? Like being able to connect to them personally as a human, I think is really important of again, kind of that vibe check of like, hey, if we're going to be working together for like months on end, like what's it going to be like for us to talk each day? And oftentimes you really can get a sense of that right away. And even just knowing like confidence level and clarity for them. And is it a space where like we can support them and just really getting that like energy along?
which I think really helps because yeah, we would we've definitely had projects where we've started to move forward in the conversations of working together and that there's essentially just a series of flags of like hey I don't know that that we are really the best partner for this and even just protecting our our time and energy more to know like sometimes even the largest budgets are not worth it if it's gonna spend our lives and our days into chaos
Mack Garrison (18:35)
Yes.
It's also, think
this like scarcity mindset that unfortunately exists for a lot of us or people who are just starting their own studio or freelance career that are listening to this. It's like, is that next one there? If I say no to this one, is that okay? And I think all three of us would agree that you have to recognize those flags and act on it. And our regrets that we have from our careers, I would surmise come from the one we didn't react to those red flags that we saw.
Lasso (19:04)
Yes,
absolutely. Yeah, and like you said something a minute ago about thinking, because I think it's so easy to when there's like a prospective project coming in, you think about the point of signing the contract and locking in the project and you never think about like, yeah, day after day for a long time working on it. Like it took me forever to actually start remembering that that's most of what we're doing is like working with other people. It's not about just winning the project.
Mack Garrison (19:31)
Yes.
Lasso (19:32)
So yeah, that's definitely cool.
Mack Garrison (19:32)
Makes you a little bit more, critical is not the word, but just focused on the right partnerships. Because again, like you said, Allen, like you're gonna be working with them for a couple of months at a time, potentially. It's like you wanna make sure you enjoy that relationship. You know, one thing I didn't ask y'all earlier, I meant to ask about LASA, where does the name come from? I'm so curious. And you got to put y'all on the spot here, because I know some names sometimes just sound fun, and that's totally reasonable.
Lasso (19:38)
own.
Yeah.
Mack Garrison (19:56)
but I'm really curious if there is any, y'all are a brand studio. I feel like it last though has to come from someone.
Lasso (20:01)
Yeah, it definitely does. Yeah, it sounds so silly. Yeah, my friends kind of used to jokingly call me Lasso because my last name was Laseter in high school.
Mack Garrison (20:12)
sick. I was hoping like, I was like, I used to be a cowboy and totally was just gonna
live out less be a cowboy.
Lasso (20:19)
Yeah, that would be cooler. yeah, I think, yeah, I don't remember. I think I maybe started...
I don't know, it was always kind like in the back of my mind. I don't actually remember when we said we should use that as our studio name. Well, it's funny because yeah, like as a branding studio, it's like we even support brands who are considering like, what should we name our company or our product or things like that? And so I think there was kind of a beauty to the fact that like we didn't, we didn't overthink it to that nth degree. Like it felt fun where we did worry or overthink it was like there was another Lasso Studio
in a country that I can't pronounce, but it looked like they had not been operating for a really long time. So for a period, we even just considered, we were like, all right, we're husband and wife, what if we were just the Lasseters? Which I'm so glad that we didn't move forward with that. And honestly, we give credit to one of our friends because they just started calling us Lasso as a duo. Yeah, because Lasso was always there, but it's like, we actually did, so we spent a lot of time like...
Mack Garrison (21:08)
haha
fine.
Lasso (21:21)
trying to go through like a real naming process. There's something about coming up with a new name. It just feels like too, it feels like overthought and like too random. then you're like, just not that Lasso is like inherently any better than any of the other names we came up with, but just the fact that it's kind of has a history. It's like, it just feels more natural. And yeah, like our friends saying, just go with Lasso. It's like hearing it from the outside. Yeah.
Mack Garrison (21:23)
Mmm.
Mm-hmm.
Honestly, I feel like it's kind of that push you need to
have a friend to like take you out of your bubble and be like, look, it's a great name. Just roll with it. Even for us, we had a late great friend, Andrew, who was like, we told him we were flirting with these different names. We were like, all right, we're thinking about Dash. And he's like, oh, there's the day you're born, the day you die. Dash is what happens in between. I'm like, yeah, well, that. But the reality was my business partner Cory and I, couldn't agree on a damn name.
Lasso (21:53)
Yeah.
Love that.
Mack Garrison (22:15)
we kicked around like 300 and we got to that point, we're like sick, know, dash works. So sometimes you need that, that friend to give you that little sidekick of like, you're in the right place.
Lasso (22:18)
Yeah. Yes.
Yeah, it's like the same as like when you're trying to name your kid. And so I'm glad that ultimately it was like, it just feels good. And yeah, I think that that could even just connect back to like how we want like our work to feel and how we want our clients to feel even like, yes, that feels right. It feels good.
Mack Garrison (22:28)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Well, I love that you're like tying it
together, right? We're bringing everyone around on this project. Last one it up. I love it. I love it. Although I would have loved it more if you, one of you was a cowboy. I will say that going back to it, but yeah, that's true.
Lasso (22:51)
We at least live in Nashville, so it's like the automatic connection that
most people outside of the city have, so we've got that in a way.
Mack Garrison (22:59)
So I'm, to change the subject a little bit, I'm really curious. One question I've been asking on these interviews is just about some stories in our industry. Both of you all have been working in this space for a long time. And one of my favorite things about attending conferences like the bash and others is just connecting with other creatives, finding out some stories that they have, like you'll never believe this client one time or we worked on this crazy thing.
Good, bad, or anything in between, I'm curious if you have a story you could share about a project that was either like crazy hard to get done or something just unheard of that you're working on. Any stories kind of bubble up to the top that maybe you could share on here, even if you disguise some names.
Lasso (23:39)
Yeah, mean, absolutely. I think one that comes to mind is the first time we ever worked with Apple. And it was, you know, one interesting thing in starting the studio and that I think that we continue to work through is even just our own mindset of like, we are a studio and we're capable of like doing all that we dream of doing. And even just...
you know, hoping that we could have opportunities with clients at like a larger scale who really value creativity, especially in the way that they do. Like those are ideal clients for us. And so it was interesting timing because I was pregnant with our second child and that that year, you know, we really, it was the first time that we were going to like create our own maternity leave as a company and knowing like, okay, this is, this is a big thing. This is something that we really want.
And so something that was really beautiful about that timing was, you we had created the plan and the vision for what we wanted that to look like. And we needed like a solid project to land within a certain time period and experiencing the fear of like, what is going to land? When is it going to come? And then the beauty of like it, the way that the email and the inquiry came in and the relationship, and then even the beauty of how that team worked with us, because the truth was I was
pregnant and our son was going to come, clearly in pregnancy, it's very hard to say it's going to happen on this date. So from the producer side being like, we just need to be like super clear with you of like, we're planning to shut the studio down for two weeks whenever the baby does come, but we can't tell you, you know, when that is going to happen. And so just like laying that all out at the beginning and experiencing that fear for ourselves, right? Of like, what if us kind of taking away what a studio would typically offer?
Mack Garrison (25:20)
Hmm.
Lasso (25:24)
which is like we're gonna get this project done by X-State.
Mack Garrison (25:24)
Mm-hmm.
Lasso (25:27)
And the beauty of that project was how just human and joyful they all were for us. Like they were thrilled for us. And that was just one beautiful example of how those partnerships can really support like the life that we actually wanted and allowing that project to flow. And it's one that like we're super proud of, but that, you know, just based on the nature of the project and white labels and all those, like it's not one that we've gotten to share before. But that was like a really, I think a much
Mack Garrison (25:51)
Hmm.
Lasso (25:54)
more personal but like really special project that we've experienced.
Mack Garrison (25:58)
I love that so much. I feel like there's always a fear. I think we all navigate this as creatives, because whether it's you have a boss in your in-house, you're a freelancer working for a client, you're running a studio, dealing with clients, there's always this fear as if we don't do something that we might not get the opportunity to do it again, or it has to be handled a certain way.
You know, it's such a refreshing conversation to hear that story and that Apple treated you all that way. I'm sure that it probably shifted your perspective on what is a purple. Like have you guys gone from that conversation? Has it shifted your mentality even on other projects? It's like, wow, if Apple is doing XYZ, we should have the standard with everyone. If that standard was different before. Have you felt a change since that project on how you treat other projects and handle other clients?
Lasso (26:48)
I I think even we were trying to do that beforehand, but I think there was something unique about how big that project and even just like the opportunity with a more well-known client name was, but that that really was getting to practice, like being honest about who we are. Like we are a husband and wife team and we scale up based on the scale of the project that we have.
And so I think just knowing, like we can be honest about who we are. We can set really clear boundaries too of like this is what we're doing or this is what needs to happen. And so continuing to like build that confidence and to know that we can do it for other clients too.
Mack Garrison (27:25)
I love that, love that so much. If anyone's listening to this podcast, which we hope people are, I don't even know, is this a podcast? Is it a vidcast? It's all of the above, check D, right? I'd love to get y'all's pitch on someone who's maybe on the fence of buying a bash ticket, thinking about coming to see y'all. Why should someone come see Lasso? Why should they come hang with Allen and Lindsey? What are you guys gonna talk about at the event, you think?
Lasso (27:33)
It's all these things.
I think it kind of did again kind of go back to what we talking about earlier. I mean the goal is just to be as honest as possible and to try because you know this is really fun. think this is what's so interesting about this event is that we're kind of trying to focus on and my understanding is that in general like we're kind of trying to focus more on you know the true like authentic part of you know what doing this work is like.
And you know, as a studio, like, you know, it's like we have kind of a mixed, it's okay if we're get this honest here, but there's kind of a mixed like motivation where it's like we want to come and be totally honest. But also, yeah, it's like we want just in general, not just at this event, but more people to know our name.
to get more work and form more relationships and stuff. So it's like going to be a really interesting balance, I think, of like being totally honest, but also like, I don't know, like how honest do you want to be and not like scare people off, you know, because we're messy. It's messy humans.
Mack Garrison (28:48)
We want the field
to continue. People need to continue to start studios and stuff. We don't want to be, you know, tell them how hard it is sometimes.
Lasso (28:53)
Yeah. But it's
like to me, I don't know, to me that's the most interesting thing. Like meeting anyone, hearing anyone talk is just like hearing the truest thing they can say about themselves. So I don't know. To me, I think that's the reason of self to come and hear not only us, but hopefully a bunch of other people talk about the real, the real part of all this stuff. Yeah.
Mack Garrison (29:13)
And it is the real
part about all this. Go ahead, Lindsey.
Lasso (29:15)
Yeah, I just going to add, I think the beauty of these types of events is, you know, clearly you're drawn to it for a certain reason and the people who are speaking are essentially like an expander for things that are possible. you know, our goal, like Allen said, is like, it is messy. It is messy to do the work. It's messy to be a parent. It's messy to work with other human beings in your own studio and other like just clients. And so I think like we were honored to be asked and I think that it felt
It felt like a level up moment of like, like we have been working really hard and getting the chance to like share the real behind the scenes, I think is a real gift. And just allowing people to see here's how they handled it. Here is what I'm drawn to. Here's what I know I want to do in my life right now. Like I've been thinking about that so much lately, especially teaching like these students that are about to graduate and like go out into the world and just being able to really zero in on what matters to you and connecting to people who are.
gonna like you know kind of help you step into that next version even when it feels scary and so I hope in a small way like we can do that just by sharing what what's happened for us so far.
Mack Garrison (30:22)
I love it so much. Community, connection, reconnecting, learning from one another. It's what's so important and what keeps our relationships with other peers so strong in this industry. Thanks everyone for tuning in today. Been chatting with Lindsey and Allen Laseter who are the co-founders and Creative Directors at Lasso Studio, an amazing brand and animation shop based out of Nashville. We cannot wait to have you at the Dash Bash. If you have not got your ticket yet, it's June 11th through 13th, 2025.
We're having an optional third day of workshops this year, two full day of speakers and hangouts. There'll be parties, there'll be plenty of time to network and really just learn a thing or two from one another, which is what it's all about. Thanks so much for hanging out with me today, y'all. Great chatting and can't wait to see you all this summer.
Lasso (31:05)
See you soon!
Mack Garrison (31:07)
See
ya.
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.
Takeover Tuesday with David Holm
An interview with David Holm: a 2D animation & illustration specialist from Detroit, Michigan.
Interviewer: Bella Alfonsi
Read time: 5min
Bella:
Thanks for joining us for Takeover Tuesday, Dave! Please give the people a lil' introduction!
Dave:
My Name is David Holm and I am an animator/designer at Boxfort, in Detroit Michigan.
Bella:
How did you get into motion design?
Dave:
I went to school for graphic design originally but always wanted to make cartoons and make short films.
The community college at the time didn't have any classes for 2d animation.
But towards my last semester I won a scholarship contest. Which gave me the funds to take a full year of extra classes. So I took Intro to After Effects and Advanced After Effects(taught by Steve Savalle at the time)
And those two classes really helped me use my graphic design and illustration skills in a new way.
Then a year after graduating college in 2012 I landed my first in house studio job as a motion designer!
A frame David’s reel.
Bella:
What's the workflow like when mixing 2D and 3D styles together?
Dave:
When I work with mixing 2D and 3D I usually like the 3d elements to ground the 2D animations. So the characters will be all 2D animated but the environment is all made in 3D.
I just think mixing the 2d/3d can give you a really unique look and results. I also really like using glass and reflections to get cool random light leaks.
Bella:
I love me a character made from an inanimate object- big fan of yours. How do you give personality to something that isn't a human?
Dave:
Thank you! I really have a wild imagination that lets me give random objects backstories and wonder how this character/object behaves in an animated world.
Every object in my house has been drawn with a face lol
Dave worked with his pals Gunner to create some animated stickers for a unique mint company called Flintt Mints
Bella:
Do you have a favorite project that you've worked on?
Dave:
My favorite project I've worked on is probably Recess or Half Rez, because we collaborated together to mix a bunch of styles together and made something that felt fresh and unique.
Bella:
Where do you find inspiration?
Dave:
I find inspiration in everyday life. I really benefit from going outside and just watching the plants sway in the wind. And see the wild life thrive and just live around us.
Also bringing a mini sketch book around and using it to do quick idea sketches on the spot.
Bella:
What are you most proud of in your career thus far?
Dave:
What I am most proud of in my career would be probably being able to successfully work as an animator/designer and pursue other hobbies on the side.
Recently I joined my friends band and being freelance lets me be flexible to do both. Also, contributing on the Dash Bash titles this year was a highlight too!
It was a dream project to work with Dash and have it be seen by so many creatives.
Frame from Recess, a Boxfort short film.
Bella:
What's it like working at Boxfort? Do you collaborate often with fellow freelancers?
Dave:
Working at Boxfort has been incredible, we have grown a lot in the last year and we have a lot of new creative energy. We do collaborate a lot by giving each other advice or suggestions. And we are also in the process of creating a handful
of new animated short films. We actually just released an animated short for the new Gunner School. You can check that out here.
Bella:
Do you have any advice for being stuck in a creative rut/how to get out of it?
Dave:
If I get stuck in a creative rut, I usually need to take a break from the screen and all technology. Taking a walk in the woods or a park helps me so much to give myself some clarity and motivation.
Music playlists that are made to get me motivated and stay creative help me a lot too. Also exercise a little will give your brain a boost. We like to play hacky Sack to break up the screen time. It gets your body moving and it's fun!
Bella:
Any final words of wisdom?
Dave:
Final words of wisdom would be to write down your projects/to do lists daily. Sketch ideas out instead of doom scrolling social media. Also, you should set aside a day to not be on the computer at least once a week.
Takeover Tuesday with Liz Klein DiBello
An interview with Liz Klein DiBello: a Brooklyn based designer, animator and creative director.
Interviewer: Bella Alfonsi
Read time: 5min
Bella:
Thanks for joining us for Takeover Tuesday, Liz! Can you please give us a lil' introduction?
Liz:
Thanks so much for having me in! I’m so happy to be a part of this!
I’m Liz Klein DiBello, and I’m a Brooklyn based designer, animator and creative director.
I come to motion design with a graphic design background, and it’s a part of everything I do. My work has focused on design-based motion projects like network rebrands and broadcast design, commercials and online videos, but has also included projects that focus more on a collage and texture-based approach which lends itself to projects like explainer videos, PSA’s and more.
Also, I just recently joined the incredibly talented team at Mighty Oak full time as Associate Creative Director!
Bella:
How did your career in motion design begin?
Liz:
From a young age I was always interested in anything related to drawing, painting and crafting, so I guess you could say it started there. There was a chest of drawers in my house filled with all sorts of crafting materials: different types of papers, scissors, pastels, crayons, markers and more (this is probably what started my interest in collage). When I got older and my family got their first computer, I got super into Photoshop and discovered graphic design. Later I found out that I could do this as my career, and that’s what made me pursue a design education.
But for motion design specifically, that part of my story started in school. I was going to the School of Visual Arts in New York for Graphic Design, and took Ori Kleiner’s intro to motion class Junior year. Motion design and After Effects was still relatively new at the time, and I loved the idea of bringing design to life and pairing it with music. Ori would show the class so many examples of great titles sequences and introduced us to the process of making motion graphics. I was super inspired by seeing how others were using this new tool. Senior year there was an option to specialize in motion design and I knew it was the right move for me. I decided to do a portfolio class with Ryan Moore.
During school I had always kind of been working, I was always very practical and really wanted to dive right into real life projects. I was interning at Nickelodeon, but I also started taking on a few freelance jobs here and there. One of my first motion design jobs was a book trailer that was all kinetic type, which was trending at the time.
After I graduated, I found my first full time job at The String Theory, a small studio in Manhattan that introduced me to so many different types of projects– anything from broadway commercials, to billboards in Times Square, explainer videos, lyric videos and so much more.
A frame from Liz’s DogTV project.
Bella:
With expertise in multiple areas, from illustration to art direction, is there a part of the creative process that you enjoy doing the most?
Liz:
The beginning of the creative process is always my favorite. I like to spend time upfront researching, learning, looking for inspiration, and exploring the different directions a project could go. What I find during this phase can help inform design decisions, and the look and feel of what I’m working on. There’s so much potential during this step.
Bella:
Do you have any advice for other artists trying to go full-time freelance?
Liz:
I have SO many freelance words of wisdom! One big one is that community is super important for many reasons- it will not only keep the jobs flowing, but there’s also an element of support that is there. There’s moments where you might feel isolated because you are flying solo. You’re going to have questions about rates, or the hold system, or maybe you just want to bounce an idea off of someone, but you don’t have co-workers anymore to do that with. Panimation NYC is one of those communities, and Dorca Musseb asked me last year to become an admin. It’s such a great space to provide all of those resources, plus just being a way to meet some genuinely cool people, and I’m happy to be a part of that.
Another piece of advice is boundaries during bookings- define them before you start looking for jobs, and stick to them. For example, how many hours does your rate include, 8, 10? What is your overtime rate, and when does that kick in?
Bella:
Where do you find inspiration? How do you combat creative burnout?
Liz:
Of course I’m constantly inspired by the many talented artists and studios in our community, but I try to look outside of the industry as well so I can get a fresh perspective. Some of the best inspiration can come from a trip I just took, an exhibition that I recently saw at a museum or gallery, or just walking around the streets of New York. Music has also always been a huge inspiration of mine– when I go to a concert, I always look forward to seeing what kinds of graphics are on the screen behind the band and what the merch looks like. Music can have such an impact on how something moves and looks.
Inspiration is also one way to fight burnout. Burnout is so real and so important to acknowledge. It’s important to get ahead of it and realize when it’s starting to happen and what your key signs are. For how to recharge, it’s kind of a balance between just stopping to relax fully physically and mentally, but creatively. For the physical/mental part, doing something away from the computer and devices is pretty key- like a hike in nature, or yoga.
Bella:
Your style is super fun and colorful. What would you tell someone who is trying to "find their own style"?
Liz:
Thank you! I would say to take note of what you enjoy working on the most, and try to do more of that. Your style will naturally evolve from there.
I’d also say my own style is still evolving, it’s a long road! So don’t get discouraged if you don’t have a “style” right away. Sometimes you can only see the pattern in your work by looking back at your past work and seeing the common threads.
Frame from Liz’s reel.
Bella:
Do any of the projects you've worked on stand out as a favorite?
Liz:
I don’t know if it gets much better than DOGTV. I had always wanted to work on a network rebrand, and Andrea Pabalan and Darci Manely at thelab nyc approached me to art direct a rebrand for the streaming service.
I should explain that DOGTV is a streaming service for dogs– it keeps them occupied while their pet parents are out of the house, and is actually based on scientific research around reducing stress in dogs. The channel content is actually broadcast in colors that dog’s eyes can see. So it’s a fun project but also serves a helpful purpose.
Our team worked on an entirely new set of assets for the brand that could live on the streaming service, but also in print and digital too. We started with a new logo, typefaces, colors, tone of voice, custom patterns, illustrations, and a brand new photo and footage library. Then we took those elements, and created a new look and feel for the streaming service itself and its content– so everything from bumpers, to transitions and lower thirds, to a sample promo for one of the shows.
We wanted the look and feel to reflect the energetic and unique personalities of dogs, so we went super bold, colorful and poppy. Knowing this was a rebrand for a channel based around dogs, motion was always a huge part of this rebrand and would be something we kept gut checking ourselves against throughout the process. We knew everything we created had to feel like it had the right energy and a playfulness to it.
One of the most fun parts of the project was getting to have a two day photo and live action shoot with over 30 dogs. I made a lot of new furry friends!
Bella:
How do you make yourself stand out among other artists when pitching to a new client?
Liz:
For me it’s not about looking at it as a competition. It’s all about recognizing what you bring to the table and pointing out what makes you and your skills unique, and why and how those things would make the client’s project great. For me, it’s that I can wear many hats- I can design, animate, edit, illustrate, and direct. And I enjoy hopping into all of those roles!
Bella:
What's your proudest moment in your career thus far?
Liz:
I’m really proud of the projects that I work on that give back in some way and use design and animation to serve a greater purpose. I’ve now worked on a few projects that are centered around the importance of elections and voting, a cause that I deeply believe in. I was lucky enough to work on FiveThirtyEight’s The New Bellwethers series, which came out at the time of the 2016 election. Even though the election didn’t pan out as I had wanted, it felt good to be able to contribute to the conversation at that time. Another election based project I’ve gotten to work on recently with Mighty Oak is a spot for NYC Votes. We’re breaking down the process of how to vote to help get more people out there on election day.
And one more bonus proud moment- someone once got a tattoo of a logo that I made. I can’t believe someone liked my design so much that they wanted it with them forever! So that’s definitely up there with my top moments.
Frame from FiveThirtyEight’s The Bellwethers series.
Bella:
Are there any projects coming up that you're excited about?
Liz:
Right now I’m working on a series of collage-based videos for IBM, which I’m pretty excited about.
Thank you so much for the invitation again, it means so much to me. I really enjoy reading these interviews and it’s great to be a part of this series!
Takeover Tuesday with Alejandro Grima
An interview with Alejandro Grima: a freelance art director, motion designer and animator based in Madrid, working for start-ups, companies and agencies around the globe on projects big and small.
Interviewer: Matea Losenegger
Read time: 5min
Matea:
Hello! Thank you for taking time to participate in our series. Can you please introduce yourself and your work?
Alejandro:
Hi there! My name is Alejandro and I’m a Madrid-based motion designer and animator. I was once a jack-of-all-trades graphic designer that worked on digital design, packaging, branding and animation, but 7 years ago I specialized in motion graphics and I’ve been freelancing since.
I’ve been able to work with clients and studios around the globe, and not being restricted geographically and being able to meet people from different backgrounds are some of the things I enjoy the most about freelancing.
When I’m not playing around with keyframes in After Effects, I’m probably discovering new fancy coffee shops, running or taking photos.
Matea:
You have a lot of fun and striking vector work in your portfolio. How did you develop your design style?
Alejandro:
I didn’t really develop a style in a conscious way, I think it has more to do with the evolution of my career: I started out as a branding/digital graphic designer without a proper interest in illustration and maybe that’s how I was initially attached to using simple vectors (also due to the lack of more complex illustration skills). It was later on that I gained interest in more illustrative styles after meeting and working with illustrations, animating their work, and then trying to replicate what they were marvelously doing.
Having said this, I’m really happy that I come from a pure graphic design background, because it allows me to approach each project from a functional point of view and then go for the style that I think should work best. Versatility is key!
A frame from Alejandro’s Lucidity Tech project.
Matea:
On a similar note, I really love your logo and 36 days of type animations. Is there a secret sauce in creating precise and effective visuals?
Alejandro:
I would say trusting the process. I usually get to a result animation I’m happy with after following these three steps:
First, planning everything, doing quick sketches or a storyboard to visualize how everything is going to move.
Secondly, work on the movements, nailing the key poses and how every element interact with each other.
And last but not least, spending time working on the timings of every move, because many times a movement lasting ore or a few more/less frames can really make a difference in the end result.
Matea:
You've obviously honed your craft in Adobe Illustrator and After Effects. Are there any plugins or additional software you like to use in your work?
Alejandro:
Way to many, perhaps! But mainly Overlord (which I find crucial to effortlessly bridge between Illustrator and After Effects), and Duik, Key Cloner and Nudge for quicker and precise keyframe tweaking.
Some of Alejandro’s 36 days of Type explorations.
Matea:
Where do you find inspiration- in and out of the art world?
Alejandro:
In regards to art related stuff, I enjoy going to exhibitions and having a look at anything that has to do with product design and architecture. I even have a dedicated architecture-focused Instagram account because I also love photography and these two subjects collide frequently.
Outside of the arts world, I think what inspires me the most is probably meeting people. I’m a shy person, so it isn’t always easy, but I actively try to push myself out of the comfort zone because I find discovering about other people’s lives, jobs and ways of thinking absolutely enriching.
Matea:
What was your favorite project you've worked on and why does it stand out to you?
Alejandro:
Probably the work I did for Lucidity. I got to learn a lot of really interesting stuff from their team, and they were all a delight to work with. They really know their product and are were able to contribute with interesting ideas while giving me absolute freedom to visualise the information at the same time and could work on some interesting animations and transitions.
Alejandro’s project for Centro Nacional de Golf.
Matea:
You've worked with an interesting variety of clients. What's your favorite type of client to work with?
Alejandro:
Definitely the clients that, because of the nature of the project, make you learn new stuff. For example, I worked on a couple of animation explainer videos not too long ago for a blockchain-based technology and a new pharma product, so in order to being able to translate the information into something visual you have to understand well how this technology works and how that medication affects the body. And, by the end of the day, you go to bed with knowing more interesting stuff than when you woke up.
Matea:
How do you fight burnout and stay motivated to create?
Alejandro:
For me, it’s a balance between routine and the unexpected. While exercising and meditation have become keystones of my mental health, I also try to fit as many activities involving new experiences in my schedule as possible. Be it seeing an exhibition, trying a new sport, getting lost around a part of the city you’ve never been to, or trying that fancy new cocktail bar you discovered last week.
Also, special mention to the occasional chatting with my creative friends Vivian, Lucía and Miguel over a cup of coffee. They’re incredibly inspiring people and their insight has got me out of a creative block more times than I can count (thanks guys!).
Matea:
Is there a type of animation you're interested in exploring?
Alejandro:
I’m always trying to learn new stuff but seeing so many talented people doing so many different things on social networks doesn’t really help with the fact that there are only so many hours in a day (ha!). So one can just set priorities, and my current priority is improving my frame-by frame animation skills. After this, I would love to start playing around with code and interactive animations.
Motion for Wearebold & Somosmejor’s branding of OEI
Matea:
Are there any upcoming projects you're excited to share this year?
Alejandro:
As for commissions, I’m particularly excited about the motion identity explorations I’m developing for a couple of design studios here in Spain. And in regards to personal/side projects, I’m working on my first short film that’s allowing me to explore new techniques. All I can say for now is that it’s about museums and some absurd things happening inside them ;)
Takeover Tuesday Veterans Day Edition with Jeffery Lawson
An interview with Jeffery Lawson: an Art director / Illustrator born and raised in NC who it a bit of a tactile tradesman , lover of all things nature and color.
Interviewer: Bella Alfonsi
Read time: 5min
Bella:
Thanks so much for joining us for Takeover Tuesday, Jeffery! Could you tell us about yourself?
Jeffery:
I am a Veteran, Art Director, Designer, and illustrator born and raised in North Carolina. Most of the work I love making is mixed with fun and a bit of thoughtfulness. I love printmaking and collecting vintage goosebumps books. I am a nature lover and 80’s horror movie aficionado and lover of all things spooky.
Bella:
How did you find your way into motion design? A bit of your background?
Jeffery:
That's a bit of an interesting story! Hold onto your seats, this one's a doozy. My journey into motion design looks like a bit of a treasure map with many points. In the early 2000’s I got started in design learning to be a screen printer and tattoo artist in my local area. Fast forward many moons later I ended up leaving my career in the military and going back to college to be a student.
A frame from Jeff’s Logitech project with Demo Duck.
Bella:
How was the transition from the military to being a student?
Jeffery:
It was by far one of the most challenging periods in my life. I like to call this my transition phase. My most memorable moment, which was the most challenging, was when I separated from the military on a Friday and Monday morning I was sitting inside a college classroom. It was a complete mental shock not only culturally but mentally as well. Having served in two combat zones made it a little harder given the difference between military life and civilian life. For example, there are strict timelines in the military, and transitioning to civilian life you no longer have those in place and must set them for yourself.
Bella:
What did you learn from being in the military that carries over into your career today?
Jeffery:
There are a few military lessons that I still carry with me but the most important comes from an old army leadership manual. For more about this topic, you can google the 4 c’s of army leadership.
Competence - This means being operationally and technically skilled at what the organization does. When one moves up their understanding of the entire process is far more important than technical skills.
Commitment- This means placing heart and soul not only into the organization but most importantly of all its people. For example, A great leader arrives an hour early and leaves an hour after the last team member clocks out. A committed leader takes the time to learn the habits of each team member and then leads them accordingly.
Candor - This means always being able to be candid at all levels regardless of position. Basically, it means being able to be honest about something regardless of how someone might feel.
Courage - This means having not only physical courage but moral courage to say and do what is right even if one must stand up to someone.
One of several concepts chosen for a client pitch for Tango Analytics
Bella:
What do you want to say to those who were in your shoes a few years ago?
Jeffery:
I'd tell them to reference an old proverb that goes like this “Seek and you shall find “. How this relates to your career is as follows.
1- Seek to fill the gap- There's a beautiful video series by Ira Glass that was shared with me called The Gap. In this video, he talks about going through a volume of work to fill the gap between where you are and where you want to be. My interpretation of this is something I always share with my mentees and I want to share it with you. In order to get where you are trying to go you have to fill this imaginary hole with things that are going to make you better. Examples of these things are tutorials, podcasts, lectures, meteors, personal work, feedback, and books.
2- Seek discipline - There's a great book out there that I've read several times called “Discipline Equals Freedom: Field Manual” by Jocko Willink which is essentially the key to filling the gap that I discussed above. The term discipline equals freedom applies to every aspect of your life and if you want more freedom you gotta get more discipline in your life.
3- Seek a village - There's a quote by the motivational speaker Jim Rohan that states that we are the average of the 5 people we spend our time with. My interpretation of this is that during my career so far I've befriended people who share similar values and beliefs as I do but who are also far more talented than me. By seeking a village of people who support you but who can also offer up honest advice it will help you see the chinks in your own armor and make you stronger.
Bella:
What are some of the techniques you use to create the work you do?
Jeffery:
A magician never tells his secrets, am I right? WRONG. To be super transparent I'm all over the place with techniques because I love exploring and experimenting. I will say that I consider myself a tactile tradesman of sorts. I enjoy integrating things that can be done using printed methods or by hand and merging them with digital aesthetics. For example, recently I had the pleasure of creating a title sequence project at Gunner School, and after brainstorming and pitching two directions I settled on one that used scanned-in elements from nature to emphasize the core elements of the movie.
Art Direction Jeff provided for Prisidio vis Demo Duck
Bella:
Do you have a favorite type of project to work on?
Jeffery:
This question is a bit of a hard one! In general, I have a deep appreciation for mixed media art. My interests span from collage to two-dimensional works and even dabble in a small touch of 3D. My preferred project styles can vary, but there's usually a common thread tying them together, and that's the element of enjoyment. Much of this passion is showcased on my website within a category I've named "TIDBITS," where I explore diverse artistic styles.
Bella:
You mentioned schooling and I see you recently attended Gunner School. What was that like?
Jeffery:
Attending Gunner School was a truly transformative experience. I had the privilege of exploring new ways of animation, thanks to the guidance and support of my peers and mentors. This opportunity encouraged my passion for learning and pushed me to unlock my potential. Through collaboration and hard work, I grew into a more confident and knowledgeable individual. This journey left a lasting impact on my life, opening doors to exciting possibilities and shaping my identity and outlook in profound ways.
Bella:
What are your goals for the next couple of years?
Jeffery:
Career:
1- Full-time employment with studio
2- Explore more creative styles of design
3- Publish a book on creative thinking
Personal:
1- Spend more time with family
2- Nurture more creatives
3- Watch more horror movies
Jeffery’s new demo reel.
Bella:
Was there ever a time when you didn't think breaking into Motion Design was even possible?
Jeffery:
Indeed, it's important to remember that every profession has its share of highs and lows, and taking that initial step can be quite challenging when embarking on any career journey. In my own experience, after graduating, I initially had a fantastic internship opportunity lined up, but unexpected circumstances threw a wrench in my plans. After this happened, luckily, I had the awesome support of a mentor whom I met through School of Motion to help me navigate such an event. Fast forward 8 months and with this person's help I had built a portfolio.
Bella:
Who are your personal heroes?
Jeffery:
Please bear with me as I share a touching story about my personal hero, Amanda Russell. Amanda is a Creative Director at CREAM Studio, and she is not only a highly accomplished professional but also an exceptional human being. Her boundless compassion has left an indelible mark on me that I try to emulate to others. Countless times, Amanda's unique blend of creativity and kindness has guided me through challenges in my own career that I couldn't have overcome on my own. In addition to her unwavering empathy, she serves as a deep wellspring of inspiration, embodying the qualities I deeply admire and aspire to cultivate in myself. Her steadfast commitment to creativity and the well-being of those around her should serve as a guiding light for anyone seeking a mentor in their career.
Bella:
Who are your personal heroes?
Jeffery:
Eddie: I was in the desert once, out in the middle of nowhere, absolutely nowhere. Just me, the sand, and silence. But if you know what to listen for, it ain’t silent out there. I heard a music out there I never heard before. In the silence. That’s what I’m after, kid. That’s intense. You dig down deep and touch something like that, people are gonna listen. They’ll listen to you because you got something to say! Not just something to show. You understand?
This quote comes from one of my favorite 80s movies called ‘Eddie and the Cruisers”. Sometimes you have to shut out all the noise of the world so you can hear your own internal voice. We all have an internal compass / creative voice we must listen to and when you add in the many distractions of the modern age it can get quite noisy. Enough to the point where you can't even discern what direction you should point your compass.
Takeover Tuesday with André Leite
An interview with André Leite: a motion designer and pizza lover from Brazil, currently living in Lisbon, Portugal.
Interviewer: Bella Alfonsi
Read time: 5min
Bella:
Thanks so much for joining us for Takeover Tuesday, Andre! Could you please give us a lil' intro?
André:
Hey there! I'm André Leite, a creative motion designer, punk rock enthusiast, and pizza lover, originally from Brazil, but currently rocking it in Lisbon, Portugal.
Bella:
How did your career in the motion industry start?
André:
This a long one…before diving into Motion, I went through various "fun" jobs. I worked at a skate shop, a tattoo studio, and also organizing music shows in Fortaleza (my hometown). By chance, in 2008, a friend invited me to work at a local TV network that only played music videos. I've always had a passion for videos and music, so when I saw the editing suites there, I thought to myself, "This is where I belong, sitting in the air conditioning (Fortaleza is crazy hot!) and editing MTV style segments - this is perfect!”
After learning how to edit, I started watching Andrew Kramer's videos and gradually transitioned from editing to VFX. I dived deeper into my studies through tutorials and books. In other words, I was completely self-taught on this journey.
I then began working at commercial production companies, where, in addition to editing and VFX, I was also required to animate texts, icons, packshots,
transitions, and more. It was there that I discovered the magical world of animation. Although I sometimes worked 14-18 hours a day and even slept several nights on an air mattress in the editing suite, I can say that this period was an intensive After Effects course. I faced all sorts of challenges and never had enough time. I struggled a lot, but I also learned a great deal.
After working some years at the top video production companies in Fortaleza, I moved to São Paulo, the land of opportunities. If you stand still for too long on street corner in São Paulo, a job might just fall and hit your head. After a while, throught networking, agencies and studios were constantly calling me to create explainer videos, which I loved because I found working with animation is much more enjoyable than VFX. I became a freelancer and never looked back. After a few of years, I wanted to challenge myself so, I bought "The Animator's Survival Kit" and focused my studies on character animation. And that's what I continue to do to this day.
A frame from André’s reel.
Bella:
With over 10 years of experience in the industry, how do you feel it has changed over time?
André:
Definitely, the amount of information and softwares is crazy now! Back when I started was challenging to find study materials, especially for those who didn't speak English. It was very rare to come across another motion designer. Nowadays, if you open a pack of cereal, you might even find a motion designer as prize…
Motion design has become incredibly popular. Every client wants or already has a motion video for their company. With each passing day, there is new information and techniques to study. At the same time, I really feel motion design has evolved into a vast international community, where practically anyone can participate, whether they're working in the field or simply appreciating the work. And events such as OFFF or Dash Bash really help to consolidate this sense of Community.
Bella:
What's the animation scene like in Portugal? Are your clients mostly there or do you find yourself working more internationally?
André:
When I arrived here in 2017, I was primarily working for the Portuguese market. It was great! I made a lot of networking connections, friends, and learned a lot. However, Portugal is a small country, and there aren't many clients with big budgets. So, gradually, I started seeking international clients to not solely depend on the local market. In my case, nowadays, I would say that I work 25% for Portugal and 75% overseas.I believe the studios here are doing the same, increasingly looking for international clients.
An undeniable fact about Portugal is the abundance of talent—there's truly a lot of it! However, when these talents are unable to work remotely, they often move to countries that offer better pay. Overall, I feel that with each passing year, the motion community in Portugal is stronger and more competitive.
Style frame from “Lagunitas IPA Day.”
Bella:
What's your process like for animating characters? What's your favorite thing about character animation?
André:
I'm a rebel who likes to do everything within After Effects, including the illustration, if possible. And I stick to the basic principles of animation.
I normally start by creating simple key poses, sometimes using "stick paths" just to understand what kind of rig I'll need. Once I have a simple rig for the character, I begin animating the in-between frames, and only then do I add details like lighting, shadows, and textures. I usually leave the animation of the head/face for last, I'm not sure why, probably it's just a habit.
Without a doubt what I enjoy the most is the challenge of always doing something new, either animating different art styles or trying out a new character movement that I've never done before. It constantly requires me to put my brain to work, figuring out how to achieve it, and it never gets boring.
Bella:
You've worked in so many different fun styles. Is there one you enjoy the most?
André:
To be honest, I don't have a preferred style, I simply enjoy animating. Nowadays, I have been able to choose
my projects with more aesthetic consideration, which is great! In the past, I animated numerous stock image characters, but now I tend to collaborate with illustrators who have their own unique style. In addition to character animation, I'm particularly drawn to animating technology videos in a UX/UI style, with all that gradients and abstract shapes, I love it!
Gif from the “Make your Flag Green” project.
Bella:
Is there a project you've worked on that stands out as a favorite to you?
André:
Yes! I’ve a project that is very dear to me, and surprisingly, it's a video without any characters. What makes me love this video so much is that it was created from scratch - script to final video by myself, my wife, and my former business partner— a very small team. We had limited time and resources, but it was a lot of fun to work on and it gained quite a lot of views on social media.
Here's the link for anyone who wants to check it out.
Bella:
When you find yourself in a creative rut, how do you get out of it? What or who inspires you?
André:
Well, I strive to remain in a perpetual state of motion, keeping myself updated both online and in the so-called "real world," although who knows if we're already in the Matrix after all these AI advancements. I go to museums, concerts, and industry conferences to seek
inspiration too. Sometimes, I observe people, like people riding bicycles on the streets, and that becomes a source of inspiration for animating a character. I’ve always been very observant, so be careful not to become a reference in my work!
Bella:
What's the proudest moment in your career thus far?
André:
The first time I worked for a major studio outside of Brazil I really felt like I had broken a barrier. After opening that door, international clients started coming one after another, leading to cooler projects, working with big teams and renowned brands.
Frame from the Shillington Manifesto - one of André’s favorite projects.
Bella:
Any final words of advice or projects coming up this year that you're excited about you'd like to share?
André:
Firstly, I would like to thank Dash for the invitation and acknowledge this initiative that, in my opinion, adds a lot to our community. Thank you!! \o/
A piece of advice for everyone starting in this field is to remember that it's not enough to master all the software. We must realize that a significant part of the work is communication. Often, the biggest challenge is understanding what the client truly wants and finding the best way to convey the message. Sometimes, it's something simple, yet powerful. What I mean is that having good communication with your client is more
valuable than spending nights trying to create something overly complex that isn't what the client desires but rather what you want.
Recently, I was invited to animate Colonel Sanders from KFC, which was awesome, because he is such a recognizable character. It was a super complex photo-collage project, but at the same time, a lot of fun. We are still working on the Behance page, but here is the final video. I hope you enjoy it:
Takeover Tuesday Andy Evans
An interview with Andy Evans: an independent Motion Designer with a strong focus on 3D & Art Direction.
Q&A with Andy Evans.
Read time: 2min
Mack Garrison:
Thanks for participating in our Tuesday Takeover, Andy. For those that are unfamiliar with you and your work, can you tell us a bit about yourself?
Andy Evans:
Hey, thanks for inviting me to this! I’m Andy Evans, a freelance motion designer based in Reading, UK. I went freelance a month before the pandemic struck which was beautifully timed but I’ve been busy ever since. These days my work has transitioned over from 2D to 3D projects but I still call myself a generalist.
Snapshot from Andy’s BBC Showcase.
Mack Garrison:
Your 3d work is so fun! How did you initially get into the animation space?
Andy Evans:
Thanks! I’ve always been into drawing from a young age and I grew up watching Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon in the 90s. Fast forward 20 years and I started to grow an interest in graphic design. I went on to study this in which one of the modules was motion graphics. At the same time, I discovered Andrew Kramer’s videos on YouTube and it spiralled from there. After graduating, I worked at a few studios and agencies in London surrounded by incredibly talented people who knew 3D inside out. I would always pester them and ask the most basic and mundane questions, but I learnt so much.
Collection of shots from Andy’s “play” page on his website.
Mack Garrison:
Are there certain types of projects that you love to work on? What makes a good client?
Andy Evans:
My favourites are always the ones where there’s lots of room for creative freedom. When the client understands the process and enjoys the outcomes, it always ends up becoming such a positive and fun experience.
Mack Garrison:
Tell us a bit about your process, how do you approach a creative challenge?
Andy Evans:
I try and keep as open-minded as possible during the early stages while sticking to the fundamentals of graphic design. I then sketch these ideas out on paper before bringing them into the digital scene. At the same time, depending on deadlines, I need to be considerate of how long things can take as 3D always takes longer than you think! .
Mack Garrison:
I love the "Play" page on your website. How important is play in a creative workflow and how often do you get the chance to mess around?
Andy Evans:
Thanks! I think it’s very important to have some fun. With some projects, there are restrictions on brand guidelines but I always try and bend the rules. On the other hand, projects can be so open that messing around is to be expected! There’s nothing more satisfying than putting your stamp on something.
Work Andy did for Adele’s performance at Hyde Park.
Mack Garrison:
It's hard to pick one project as a favorite, but do you have any that stick out as being really fun?
Andy Evans:
I recently was lucky enough to work on the visuals for Adele’s concert at London’s Hyde Park this summer. I was surrounded by so many talented people which made the process so much fun. The energy and enthusiasm from the team were electric!
Mack Garrison:
Knowing what you know now, what advice would you give to aspiring creatives?
Andy Evans:
Never stop learning! Keep experimenting and try new things. Don’t feel pressured by social media to compare yourself to others. Just be yourself :)
Mack Garrison:
What do you think the future of Motion Design looks like? Anything you're particularly interested in exploring?
Andy Evans
The fast development of A.I. has been seismic in the past year. Every week there seems to be another company that’s flexing its AI muscles which is fascinating to see. I have started dabbling with it for ideas so I’ll continue to explore that.
Mack Garrison:
Any upcoming projects or personal endeavors you're really excited about?
Andy Evans:
I’m currently working on something that involves boring everyday objects but is portrayed in a fun and unexpected way. Watch this space!
Mack Garrison:
Thanks so much for the great chat, Andy! And for the folks reading this, make sure to check out Andy’s site!
Takeover Tuesday with Marta Azaña
An interview with Marta Azaña: a freelance 2D animator and motion designer..
Q&A with Marta Azaña.
Read time: 5min
Mack Garrison:
Hey, Marta! Thanks so much for participating in our Tuesday Takeover series. For those unfamiliar with you or your work, let's start with an introduction - who are you and what do you create?
Marta Azaña:
Hi! Thanks so much for having me at Takeover Tuesday. I’m Marta Azaña and I’m a freelance 2D animator based in the South West of England. I’m a big fan of bright and retro-y colours and I tend to apply these to my animations, usually pretty abstract and sometimes featuring typography or characters (and bikes!).
Snapshot of Marta’s portfolio.
Mack Garrison:
How did you originally get into the motion design space? Did you have formal training or were you self taught?
Marta Azaña:
I have grown up in a creative family - Before retiring, my dad directed TV commercials and both my mum and dad are also photographers. I remember going to the sets with my dad practically my whole life and I wanted to be a filmmaker too! But I also loved graphic design and illustration. I studied Media in uni, eventually specialising in video editing. To improve my videos, I started to watch a lot of After Effects tutorials on Youtube to create nice looking intros, title sequences, etc. And that’s when I discovered that motion graphics was a thing and it was actually what I wanted to do as a career.
I didn’t study anything related to motion graphics in uni so I’m mostly self taught (I did take an After Effects and Cinema 4D course eventually). Then did two motion design internships in Madrid, Spain.
Biker study from a broader collection of .gifs
Mack Garrison:
I saw you moved to Bristol from Madrid, what was the reason for the move?
Marta Azaña:
When I finished uni in Madrid in 2013 it was recession times and the youth unemployment at that moment was around 55% (the worst year!). After two internships no one hired me and it was suuuper hard to get a junior role so I started to get a bit frustrated and I felt like I wanted a change of scenery for a little while. I also thought it would be a good opportunity to improve my portfolio. I had friends in the UK so I went to live with them while looking for motion graphics & animation jobs. I ended up in Bristol where I did….. another internship! haha this one at least was the most productive one, I learned a lot of animation stuff thanks to my good friend Matt Wilson who also was incredible patient with me & my English. After that internship I got a full time job at Bait Studio in Cardiff (where I lived for a few months) and, after that, at Hungry Sandwich in Leeds (this time remotely). I have been a full time freelancer since 2018.
Virgin America App
Mack Garrison:
What's the animation scene like in Bristol, UK? Are most of your clients in the UK or do you find yourself working more internationally?
Marta Azaña:
When I moved to the UK in 2014 I didn’t know anything about Bristol. Maybe I had heard the one thing or two when I lived in Spain but I moved there blindly which is kind of what I wanted. I instantly fell in love with the city and I was so surprised by how big the animation and creative scene in general was. There were a lot of animation studios and this was 8 years ago… the population has pretty much doubled up since so you can imagine the number of freelancers and studios these days (still quite impressive considering Bristol’s population in 2022 is 700k!).
When I started freelancing I worked with Bristol studios mostly. Nowadays I work with UK and international clients.
Mack Garrison:
It seems like everyone is moving freelance these days. What's something you wish you knew before making that decision yourself?
Marta Azaña:
When I started freelancing I used to feel a lot of anxiety when I finished a gig and while I was waiting for the next one to happen, even though I had been earning more money than I would do if I worked full time. It might have only been a couple of days wait haha but I felt really nervous and I often ended up accepting whatever came next, even if it wasn’t really interesting, just because I wanted to see myself busy. 5 years later I can see there’s definitely plenty of freelance jobs and I feel way more relaxed about not having bookings. In fact, I take way more time off than before and I use it to work on personal projects or just spend more time outdoors, riding my bike and being away from my computer.
I also used to feel guilty about not posting enough personal animations on social media while I didn’t have any client work on. Seems like when you’re a freelancer there’s a lot of pressure to always do something that feels productive or work related and constantly share it with the world, but at least in my case, I found that pressure pretty counterproductive. I love to work on my own animations and experiment when I have time off, but it’s ok not to feel in the mood for it. I find that when I’m in the mood I enjoy it sooo much more, there’s no point to force ourselves in to it.
NPower Business Rewards
Mack Garrison:
What's been your favorite part of freelancing?
Marta Azaña:
As cliche it might sound, I love having a better balance between work and life and also the variety of projects and clients I’ve got to work with. In my opinion, one of the most rewarding things is when you work with a client for the first time and they want to hire you for a second, third time, etc. You don’t really get to experience that while working full time.
Mack Garrison:
Have you found any tips or tricks to landing clients?
Marta Azaña:
When I went full time freelance, I reached out to some studios to get my first projects and since then, the word of mouth has worked very well. My advice would be to enjoy every project as much as possible, even if it’s a small one - The more motivation, the better the results and the communication with the client, which could lead to more future potential projects. Also keeping in touch with lots of different freelancers through social media, platforms like Discord or attending to events (I’ve enjoyed going to Blend and OFFF and I’ve met a few people that way too).
Mack Garrison:
Your portfolio looks great and I'm sure it's hard to just choose one, but do you have a favorite project you could tell us about?
Marta Azaña:
here are so many I’ve enjoyed working on, but the 36 Days of Type 2018 I got to do with Meghan Spurlock meant a lot professionally and personally. Also during the pandemic I got to work on some animated scenes for a documentary called “Meat me halfway” with a Bristol studio called Yoke. That was pretty different to everything I’ve done so far and I realised I would love to do more animations for documentaries or short journalistic pieces.
36 Days of Type 2018
Mack Garrison:
I'm sure there are a lot of animators who look up to you, so I'm curious, who are some motion designers you've always looked up to?
Marta Azaña:
There are sooo many! As I mentioned above, when I was a student I spent A LOT of time on Youtube and Vimeo (good times!) watching tutorials and looking for inspiration and the first person I remember coming across was Jorge Canedo when he shared the projects he did at Vancouver Film School. When above I said “that’s when I discovered that motion graphics was a thing and it was actually what I wanted to do as a career” what I really meant is that Jorge made me want to be an animator haha. I felt soo inspired and since then, the other people that have made me feel the same way have been Andrew Vucko, Yukai Du, Jordan Scott, Bee Grandinetti or Will Rose.
Mack Garrison:
Any final thoughts you'd like to share with our audience?
Marta Azaña:
To anyone who wants to make a career as a motion designer, I’d say keep experimenting and learning, but NEVER feel pressured by social media or compare yourself to others, the main goal should always be to enjoy. When you enjoy and stay motivated, everything else finds its way.
Thank you for this opportunity to show and talk about my work!
Takeover Tuesday with Caibei Cai
An interview with Caibei Cai: designer and animator who lives in Shenzhen, China.
Q&A with Caibei Cai
Read time: 3min
Mack Garrison:
Hi, Caibei! Let's start at the beginning: how did you start your career in animation?
Caibei Cai:
I studied animation during my undergraduate, and after I received MA Animation degree from Royal College of Art, I started working as a freelancer. I have made some advertisements, music videos and visual designs, sometimes I also curate programs for the animation weeks.
No More A-Roving Tour
Mack Garrison:
What's the animation scene like in Shenzhen? Is it a pretty big community?
Caibei Cai:
Shenzhen is a city with many Internet companies, animation is usually used for the APP or games. Normally, they would like to choose conservative artistic styles to cater to the public taste. So it is quite difficult to get a suitable project for me.
Mack Garrison:
Do you mainly work with local clients or do you collaborate internationally?
Caibei Cai:
I often collaborate with some agencies in Shanghai and Beijing. I haven’t worked with foreign agencies before, and I’m willing to try it.
Mack Garrison:
Your style is very unique! The textural and organic approach provides a really tactile feel in a digital space. How did you develop this approach?
Caibei Cai:
Thank you! Seeing can mean touching the texture of a thing as people can see roughness and smoothness. Our eyes can feel the coarse edge of the paper, the smooth silk or the sticky oil bottle. So what I trying to do is invite the audience to touch my film through their eyes. But not passively following the storyline or fully understanding the meaning of the film. For me, the film is like a body, you could feel its’ breath, skin, hair instead of dissecting it’s muscle or organ inside.
Pining
Mack Garrison:
Could you tell us a little bit about your process? How do you come up with ideas for a project?
Caibei Cai:
I am very interested in people’s emotions, especially anxiety. Half Asleep talks about a silent relationship, Pining is the unobtainable feeling and the clocks in my room stops is about the insomnia experience. In the pre-production of Half Asleep, I created a linear story, but I only kept the emotion and removed every specific plot. It is similar to the force triggers tactile, you can’t see the actual force but you could feel the physical changing. As for me, the story plot is similar to the force, which let the audience could feel the changing emotion, so I tried to hide the plot but only left the emotion in the film. Besides, Havelock Ellis mentioned that Touch is the most irrational and emotional in the five senses. So showing the tactile could also enhance the emotional expression in the film.
Half Asleep
Mack Garrison:
I noticed you've received Vimeo Staff Picks for Half Asleep, Pining, and The Clock in my Room Stops; congrats! Do you have a favorite of those three? Why or why not?
Caibei Cai:
I don’t have the favourite one, because I always looking forward to my next film, and I’ve just finished an animation short film called Silver Cave, which is about the hunt, domestication and desire.
Mack Garrison:
How long does it typically take to make this style of animation? Is coming up with the idea the hardest part of bringing your vision to life?
Caibei Cai:
Most of my animation is drawn frame by frame, drawing on paper allows me to touch every frame in the film. But it is really time-consuming. I would like to share the working process of Half Asleep. First, I drew all the movement on the paper with charcoal or soft pastel...
I projected the animation on fabric and recorded it.
Finally, I printed the frames out and re-coloured them.
And when I made the logo intro for the BlackFin Production, I drew the frame by colour pencils, and then scan the frames, finally printed it on the waterslide transparent paper.
Mack Garrison:
What's your proudest professional moment so far?
Caibei Cai:
Probably is the moment I got a tattoo of 1920 X 1080 on my arm.
Mack Garrison:
Any advice you'd like to give the next generation of animators?
Caibei Cai:
Eat well, sleep well, play well, and draw well!
Takeover Tuesday with Nol Honig
An interview with Nol Honig: director, designer and animator who lives in New York City.
Q&A with Nol Honig
Read time: 5min
Mack Garrison:
Hey, Nol! Thanks so much for taking the time to hop on a Tuesday Takeover; I've been a big fan of yours for a while. For those who are not familiar with you or your work, could you tell us about yourself?
Nol Honig:
Hi Mack - thanks for the kind words, and for inviting me to participate in this excellent series! Really glad to be here and in the company of so many others I admire.
My name is Nol and I’m a director, designer and animator who lives in New York City. I’ve been freelancing as a motion designer since the late 1990s, which makes me OG. At this point I’d say that I’m best-known for photo-driven, mixed-media “collage” animation, as well as for teaching After Effects Kickstart at School of Motion. Hello everyone!
The Andy Warhol Diaries
Mack Garrison:
How did your career begin? Did you always know you wanted to be in the motion world or did it take a little more luck than that?.
Nol Honig:
It took a lot of luck!
My parents were both very artistic, and encouraged me to be creative from early on. So right there, that’s extremely lucky. I was really into drawing and painting and all the usual stuff, but when I was seven years old Star Wars came out and after that I became fascinated with visual effects, stop motion, photography, and optical trickery. For me, that’s pretty much where it all started. I was also pretty lucky to have an older brother who got seriously into ‘home computing’ in the early 80s, and so I grew up feeling comfortable around computers ahead of a lot of other kids of my generation.
As a teenager I really wanted to be an indie filmmaker like Jim Jarmusch, Spike Lee, or the Coen Brothers, so after making a lot of 16mm films in college I applied to NYU for an MFA like all of those guys. And I was lucky to get in. When I was there I was really drawn to editing and post production, and volunteered to cut my thesis film on the film department’s first ‘non-linear’ (aka, computer) editing system — an AVID, which the department had just gotten that semester. Spending a few months working on a film project on a computer, and having to learn new software, was a big turning point for me.
I graduated in 1996 and while working in film production, I found myself much more interested in learning the newest software from Adobe called After Effects that had come out in the last year or so. I know it sounds obvious now, but at the time After Effects was the missing piece of the puzzle that allowed me to combine my love of filmmaking, design, animation, storytelling, staying indoors, and technology together in a way that just clicked for me. Still, there was no coherent motion design community at that time, and I worked in various production and post-production roles for many years — including directing a number of music videos for indie bands like Guided By Voices and Apples In Stereo.
My entryway into full time motion freelancing also happened as a result of luck. Somehow I had talked my way into working as an editor for a company that was producing commercials for then Senator John Kerry, who was running for President at the time. And after a few days I convinced them that I should be making commercials for them in After Effects, and not AVID. I made a ton of spots for the campaign that way, and even though John Kerry lost, I became a one-man freelance graphics department for this company. Fast forward many years, and that’s how I wound up as a lead animator for President Obama’s team in 2012.
Fireside History with Michael Beschloss
Mack Garrison:
You've got a really impressive resume of clients: Golden Wolf, Elastic, Buck, Pentagram, Hornet, Block & Tackle, PepRally, Ranger & Fox, Gretel, and let's not forget winning a Martin Scorsese Post Production Award! Tell us a little about that.
Nol Honig:
Well, the Martin Scorsese Post Production Award was something I won for my thesis film at NYU — specifically for the editing. I didn’t get to meet the great man, but as part of the award I was required to write him a letter of thanks. Not much of a story there. I believe the award was $300.
But yeah, in terms of studios … I’m super lucky to have worked with so many excellent teams over the years. As a senior freelancer, I appreciate great producers so much. They work tirelessly to make everything run smoothly, and often don’t get much credit or attention. For people entering the industry, remember: Creative Directors inspire, but Producers hire. Be nice to them, be honest about your calendar and the way you estimate your time, and always make sure to credit everyone on the team if you post about your work — including the producers.
Munn, After Losing
Mack Garrison:
You're a creator and a teacher. What led you to the education side of motion design. Do you prefer one more than the other?
Nol Honig:
I wouldn’t say I prefer teaching over animating, but I will say that being a good teacher is much harder than being a good animator. At least for me. People are more complex than keyframes.
Honestly, I got into it by accident. In 2000 a friend recommended me for a job teaching a class called “Broadcast Design” at Parsons School of Design. I got hired on the spot because I knew After Effects, even though I had no prior teaching experience. But in the end I taught at Parsons for 18 years and in 2017 I won a Distinguished Teaching Award for my contributions to the school. And I’m still in touch with a number of very talented people who I first met as students and are now working in all corners of the industry.
Even better, I had the great luck to team up with School of Motion in 2017 to create their foundation class After Effects Kickstart. I am so proud of that class, and couldn’t be happier that I partnered with such great people.
Mack Garrison:
I see you also do some writing as well. How important is it for creative to be able to write in your opinion? Any tips or tricks to being a better writer?
Nol Honig:
Being a good writer is very important, in my opinion. It helps me make good first impressions over email with people who want to hire me. It helps me win pitches for new work. And it helps me promote that work.
My advice is to remember that writing and editing are separate tasks. Both are necessary, but write first and then edit second if you can help it. And don’t skip the editing part.
The Endless Scare
Mack Garrison:
Tell us a bit about "The Drawing Room." Where does the name come from and why not just go by Nol Honig?
Nol Honig:
Traditionally, a drawing room is where the owner of a house, perhaps with a guest, could ‘withdraw’ for more privacy. For me, that’s where I want to work. In that private, relaxed space, maybe with a friend.
But the reason I don’t work under my own name is just mostly for tax reasons, as boring as that sounds.
Mack Garrison:
Looking ahead, what do you think the future of Motion Design looks like?
Nol Honig:
Laser-guided keyframes.
Mack Garrison:
Any final takeaways?
Nol Honig:
Generally — figure out what works best for you, and then work in that direction. If you want to be a better designer, find sources of visual inspiration outside of motion design. If you want to be a better animator, observe the world intentionally.
Also ... if everyone is doing X, do Y. But that’s just me.
Takeover Tuesday with Allen Laseter
An interview with Allen Laseter: an animator, designer, and director making stuff for brands and studios around the world.
Q&A with Allen Laseter
Read time: 5min
Mack Garrison:
Allen! Thanks so much for taking the time to chat with us for this week's Tuesday Takeover. For those who are not familiar with you or your work, could you give us a little intro and creative background?
Allen Laseter:
Thanks for having me. I am an animator/illustrator type, now working as Creative Director along with my wife and business partner Lindsey Laseter for our very newly formed studio, Lasso.
My background is really more in the live action world. I went to a small art school in Nashville where I still live and work and studied film, concentrating mostly on directing and cinematography, but the school was small and scrappy enough that you really were able to learn how to do everything, which in retrospect was a massive bonus.
Lasso Studio
My dream at that time was to make narrative films as a director, but when I graduated, reality set in and I started my career freelancing around town working on sets, editing, occasionally “directing” tiny commercials for local businesses, and trying my best to make non-commercial short films and other weird projects with friends.
I was doing this for a couple years until my friend who was really into After Effects and an all around technical wizard passed on a motion graphics type of job to me that he was not able to take on. The school I’d gone to didn’t have any sort of motion or even VFX program, but I’d picked up some After Effects tips from him and had made some stuff for fun just poking around on my own time. I decided to take on the project with my incredibly limited knowledge, and realized quickly how little ill-equipped I was. However, I was forced to learn a lot on the project very quickly, and by the end, I realized that I really liked working this way and wanted to seek out more of this kind of work.
This was still in the first half of the 2010’s when Vimeo had what felt like a really thriving and active motion community, and I was lucky enough to, over time, fall into a network and gradually improve my skills and find work until I had worked out a pretty nice freelance groove, working with various studios around the country as a remote animator, and occasional designer. I kept working on my chops until I began to pursue directing, and eventually got the crazy idea to form a studio!
Mack Garrison:
You've worked on a lot of fun projects over the years, but I'd love to know which have been some of your personal favorites.
Allen Laseter:
The first one that comes to mind is the first project I did for Ted-Ed on the topic of the Hedonic Treadmill framed around the scenario of Winning the Lottery and how it affects your happiness long term. I think this was the first time I had the opportunity to create a project from scratch, aside from the script which was supplied to me, and really approach a client project with a director’s mindset, in terms of really shaping how the overall piece would feel to an audience. It was also by far the longest thing I’d made, being over 4 minutes long. I think this project in particular gave me a big boost in my freelance career.
TED-Ed: Will winning the lottery make you happier?
Another memorable one for me was a short spot I did for Lagunitas as part of their “Mumblephone” series. The task was to take a voice mail that had been left on the company's customer feedback phone line and create an animation to it. That was basically the entire brief and I was allowed to do just about anything I wanted, which is rare and one of my favorite things. It was one of the early times where I got to really be adventurous and imaginative as well as really focus on a narrative for a client project.
Lagunitas: Mumblephone
Mack Garrison:
A lot of folks look up to you as a creative leader so I'd love to know who you look up to?
Allen Laseter:
That’s a really nice thought! This may sound like a cop out, but I look up to tons of people, from people who I know well to some I’ve never even met, and I hate to leave anyone out, so I will purposefully keep this short and limit it to our niche of the industry and name Zac Dixon and Sam Cowden who founded IV Studio here in Nashville. I look up to them for their rare mix of creativity and business ambition. They manage to seemingly keep their studio insanely busy with both client and self initiated projects alike and are extremely successful in both areas which is a huge inspiration to me.
Mack Garrison:
Our industry has been growing like crazy and we have more freelancers than we've ever had before. Any words of wisdom you could share with the next generation of creators? Things you wished you knew as a freelancer?
Allen Laseter:
When you get stuck or run into a problem that you can’t figure out on your own, tell someone quickly instead of burning time trying in vain to figure it out yourself for the sake of your ego. This was a big temptation early in my career and it never worked out well.
Be nice to people, even if they annoy you. It’s still a pretty small field. This will help from a business perspective and from a human perspective.
Hire a cpa.
Mack Garrison:
You and your wife Lindsey recently started a new studio called Lasso which is so exciting! What was the reason for the transition from freelancer to studio owner?
Allen Laseter:
Before Lindsey and I officially decided to start building our studio, I had personally been at a point for a while where I felt like I was ready to move on to something new, but wasn’t sure what. I had been freelancing for a while and enjoyed it but the thing I always craved was more influence over the entire process. I tried going the director route for a little bit and worked with a few different reps, but ultimately nothing ever really worked out all that well.
I was already feeling this in early 2020 and the biggest push in this direction came in March when the pandemic took over everything and we locked down and began to figure out how to work in the same space while raising our daughter and learning how to balance all the new things that stemmed from that. We also just happened to be beginning to collaborate on a project together for the first time ever, even though we were still independent freelancers. These experiences made us realize that, while we had to learn a new way of communicating (and are still learning it) we actually worked pretty well together and that our skill sets overlap very nicely and allow us to do work that we think is unique from a lot that is out there.
Some thumbnails from Allen’s portfolio
Mack Garrison:
What are you hoping to accomplish in the studio space that you weren't able to do as a freelancer?
Allen Laseter:
The main things for me are having more control over what work I take on, more influence over the end result of the work, higher quality/bigger scope projects that become possible when leading teams (as opposed to just working by myself which I’ve often done in the past) and finally, focusing more on actual directing skills, which was kind of my original goal back in film school, just in a different environment.
Mack Garrison:
What do you think the future holds for our industry? Anything in particular you're excited about or things that worry you?
Allen Laseter:
As things become more and more digital, I think that will create more and more opportunity for our kind of work. In particular, I’m excited about what this means for brand identities as this is the main focus for our studio, Lasso. In an increasingly digital space, it’s less and less necessary for a brand’s visual identity to be thought of as static first. It’s interesting to think of a brand in terms of its potential to be a changing and dynamic thing, which is what we are trying to do at Lasso.
On the other hand, and from a more zoomed out perspective, I worry about the increasing percentage of our lives that are spent in the digital realm and I think we should all go outside way more!.
Mack Garrison:
Last but not least, any new projects or creative endeavors we should be on the lookout for?
Allen Laseter:
Lasso will finally be launching a portfolio in mid-March, so keep an eye out for that!
Takeover Tuesday with Kai Kundler
An interview with Kai Kundler, a Berlin born, Frankfurt based Motion Designer and Art Director.
Q&A with Kai Kundler
Read time: 5min
Madison Caprara:
Hi, Kai! Why don’t you start us off with an introduction to yourself? What originally drew you to the creative industry and how did you find yourself where you are today?
Kai Kundler:
Hey! My name is Kai and I am a Motion Designer and Art Director currently based in Frankfurt, Germany. I also love drawing, and I try to bring it into my work as much as possible, whether in personal projects or in my creative daily life. Right now I work a lot for the automotive and motorsport sector.
My creative career began quite conventionally: as a child, I loved to draw and return continually after breaks. The love of drawing evolved into a general lust for art, which led to graffiti and, eventually, design..
Madison Caprara:
I’m not sure I’ve asked this question in previous Takeover Tuesday interviews, but I’m curious. What is it about motion design that you love? Can you remember what the original draw of it was for you personally?
Kai Kundler:
My intention was never to become a motion designer, but like many others, I grew into it. Since I was a kid, I have been a big fan of cartoons and Disney Classics. From a young age, this moved and influenced me. My four-year-old heart was broken by the Mufasa Scene in The Lion King. However, my passion for motion design has grown over the years. I wanted to be an illustrator at first, but then I switched to a more traditional digital designer focus until I discovered my passion for motion design. I was hooked after trying more 2d and 3d animation and knew this is what I wanted to do. I still enjoy creating and watching anything that moves on the screen. I've always been curious about new things and love experimenting with them.
Madison Caprara:
You’re based in Frankfurt, correct? How’s the creative industry? Do you find yourself working more with home-based or international clients? Has the pandemic affected workflow much?
Kai Kundler:
In general, I believe that the creative community is a very open and straightforward one. You run into each other at festivals, talks, and award ceremonies. You usually know each other from a variety of settings or share friends, acquaintances, or coworkers. When you don't know each other, then you will surely meet at a later point in time. It makes little difference whether you live in Frankfurt, Berlin, London, or New York. I have also had the honor of working only with open-minded and easy-going people in this business.
The creative industry has always been a fast-paced one. This was also obvious during the pandemic: it was one of the first industries to be severely impacted, and it was also one of the first to recover and pick up again. Frankfurt has always had a strong international connection as a result of its proximity to financial clients and trade fair events. In general, I work with both international and national clients. Due to the fact that big network agencies are also based here, there is always a strong exchange with other international hotspots.
Of course, the pandemic has changed a lot of our lives. Working from home requires agencies and studios to become even more digital and adaptable. People are used to collaborating in a single location. You sit across from each other or are in meeting rooms. You have offered your support when you have noticed that colleagues need help. We have all worked with teams, slack, dropbox or whatever before. However, in the office, we had many more opportunities to communicate spontaneously or keep up. Now you have to be more active to know what your colleagues are doing, to exchange thoughts, or to see how they are doing.
Madison Caprara:
How do you think the German design industry compares to that of the U.S.?
Kai Kundler:
In general, I believe the design industries in Germany and the United States are similar, but there are differences in influences. Shared influences enable an exchange in Europe, whether it's the German Bauhaus, the rich art history, or the nearby influence of Swiss Design, De Stijl from the Netherlands, Russian constructivism, or even the strong cultural and art history from France or the UK.
It is always dependent on the project or the client. In other words, Germany can appear formal and impersonal at times. This is already present in the German language, as we have a polite and a more personal form of address. This is less prominent in English, making it appear much more relaxed and simple. Until now, it has frequently been the case in Germany that the safer, formal option was chosen over trying something new. But you can also sense a shift here; this is becoming softer, and there is a lot more experimentation going on, both in national and international projects.
The US market appears to be considerably faster-paced and more zeitgeisty. Furthermore, one must not overlook the sheer magnitude of power, technology, and money emanating from Silicon Valley. The global impact is still incredible, and it is still unique in the world.
Madison Caprara:
Where do you go to for inspiration when you find it lacking and how do you maintain your creative edge?
Kai Kundler:
It's important to get inspiration from art, music, photography, architecture and other art forms as well as the motion design scene. When confronted with a blocking barrier, however, the most effective response is to do nothing. Devoting one's time and energy to other activities may be beneficial if circumstances and time allow. Another project, or simply sleeping on it for the night, sports, a walk, or other forms of distraction are always helpful. After that, you can return to the topic with a clearer head.
A walk through the city works best for me. I love to walk through the city and streets and like the vibes of the city. It is very inspiring for me to be connected to the streets. I'm also looking forward to traveling more, and I'm also a big fan of creative challenges like Inktober. Forcing yourself to be a little creative every day exercises your creative muscles and often leads to surprisingly good results.
Hyundai Mocean - Kai Kundler
Madison Caprara:
Do you have an all-time favorite client or project you’ve worked on?
Kai Kundler:
It's tough for me to claim that one particular client was exceptional, because it would imply that other customers weren't as excellent. It is always very dependent on the project and the briefing. But I had a lot of joy working on projects for technological firms like DJI and, as previously mentioned, the automobile sector. In Germany, you just can't get around it. Just as important for me are personal projects or commissions.
Madison Caprara:
What are some up-and-coming media that you’re really interested in diving into in the future?
Kai Kundler:
There is a lot going on right now, such as the Metaverse, NFTs, and AI-based tools. New technological devices, such as Apple's maybe mixed reality device, can also give the entire industry a boost and change entire work processes. I always try to stay curious and try new things, but this has the side effect of increasing my pile of shame with plugins, software or learning new things. To my disadvantage, I like to be an early adopter, so I always have a lot of things I want to try out. However, this also means that I am rarely bored.
Shapes - Kai Kundler
Madison Caprara:
I see that you studied at The RheinMain University. How valuable was your time and education to your career? And is there anything that you felt that you experienced or learned at university that you wouldn’t have been able to learn from anywhere else?
Kai Kundler:
The most significant benefit of this time was the opportunity to experiment. At first, I was given a lot of flexibility and was able to devote myself to a wide range of disciplines. This was the only way for me to discover and strengthen my inner love for motion design, 2d, 3d, and everything that moves on the screen.
That, I believe, is the most important thing a university can give you in a creative field. It is critical to be taught how to sit down and learn on your own. Motion design can be a very technical profession, and new tools are constantly being developed to help you achieve an even better result faster and more efficiently than before.
Madison Caprara:
Now, I’ve heard time and time again how personal projects outside of client work are important for mental health upkeep and furthering your skills as a creative. What is your stance on passion projects? Have you had the time recently?
Kai Kundler:
Personal projects are extremely important. Only here can you completely loosen up and experiment with new things. You can devote yourself to skills and things that are pushed aside in your day-to-day job here as well. You can learn and practice new skills. And once you're comfortable with what you've learned, you can apply it to your job or to your clients. You lay your own foundation here. I try to work on personal projects on a regular basis, and right now I'm focusing on typography and analog drawing.
A visual crush on Japan - Kai Kundler
Madison Caprara:
Aside from creating them for enjoyment, what are some things that you feel you gain from taking the initiative to do your own work?
Kai Kundler:
You begin to fine tune your skills, try new things, but you also strengthen what you already have. This boosts your self-esteem and allows you to recognize your own worth. What you quickly forget is that personal projects are the only way to get started in the creative industry. I can't tell you how many hours I spent as a kid drawing on my paper and having a good time. That is exactly what you should maintain and continue to do later on.
Madison Caprara:
Are you working on anything exciting we should be keeping our eyes open for in the near future?
Kai Kundler:
I'm currently working on a number of projects that I'm not allowed to share or that are still in their early stages. But I make an effort to be active and to create new and exciting things. As a result, it is always exciting.
Madison Caprara:
Is there anything in particular that you would like to end this interview on?
Kai Kundler:
I am sure we will come out of the pandemic stronger than before, having learned a lot about ourselves and appreciating life much more day to day. So keep moving, educate yourself, and stay creative. Also never watch Disney Classics with me because I will cry my eyes out.
Thanks for having me!
Takeover Tuesday with Kristina Sharabinskaia
An interview with Kristina Sharabinskaia, a Motion Graphics Designer and Concept Illustrator at The Mill.
Q&A with Kristina Sharabinskaia
Read time: 8min
duck Pond, 2021. Kristina Sharabinskaia.
Madison Caprara:
Hi, Kristina! If you don’t mind, let’s start the interview with an introduction to yourself. Who are you, what do you do, and how did you find yourself in the current position that you are?
Kristina Sharabinskaia:
I’m Kristina Sharabinskaia! I am a Junior Designer at The Mill. My role in the company is to storyboard, design concepts, and illustrate for motion. It's a fun job! I personally am not fond of animating things, this works well so that I don’t need to. I’m originally from St. Petersburg, Russia. I think the biggest reason why I’ve ended up in motion design is that my experiences in international schooling encouraged me to look for an escape through art.
When I was 12, I was sent abroad to England. At the time, I didn’t know English so art was something that allowed me to be busy while not speaking to people. I was that one student who draws during classes instead of paying attention. On the side, I used to go to fine art curriculums which helped me to get the principles of design down. So I took off to high school wanting to “draw cartoons,” and eventually got into college.
At SCAD, my major was Motion Media Design, and because I am an international student, ICE requires me to work in a major-related field. After graduation, I landed a few jobs as a freelancer for Scholar and State Design, however, I needed something more full-time. An HR rep from the Mill Chicago reached out to me and asked if I would be willing to work for the Mill. During the first go-around they found out that my visa was expiring soon, so they retracted the offer. A week later I saw through an old contact, Stephen Winters, an HR rep for the Mill NY, that they were hiring the same position. I DM’d him letting him know that I was interested. When I applied he vouched for me, and after three interviews, I got the job! This second time around, they looked a bit deeper into my visa situation and realized that I could extend it for another two years, so we’re good now.
Madison Caprara:
From eye-catching motion graphics to stylish designs and illustrations, your work is channeled in a variety of ways, yet still holds a pretty distinct style. How would you go about defining it?
Kristina Sharabinskaia:
My personal work explores redefining dimension. I like to play around with different scales of objects to reinforce the effect of a deformed reality. The end result is this surreal, imaginary dimension. I normally go about the process half-intuitively; I have an idea in my head of what I want to create and I vaguely sketch it out. After, I gather a lot of references based on the sketch and start drawing while copying aspects of my mood board. I then choose a style direction and use it as a guide for creating my artwork. In the end, I might apply some patterns, change the initial idea, or even evolve it into something else entirely. I often refer back to the color theory and the rules of composition. These make my decisions not so intuitive, but rather practical to reinforce the most interesting illustration that creates a new realm; bending rules of physics and logic, while still looking pleasing to the eye.
Madison Caprara:
You’re a recent university grad. Congratulations! How was your experience at SCAD?
empathy bro, 2021. Kristina Sharabinskaia.
Kristina Sharabinskaia:
Thanks! Tough question. I don’t know how much I can talk about it, but in a few words, it's a great school to connect, network, and find jobs. After all, the only reason I’m here in the epicenter of the motion graphic industry is because of SCAD's relationship with others within the creative world. They throw a career fair every year specifically for motion graphic students, so you can really network. There are so many cool resources, like a swimming pool, gym with real instructors, and even free late-night cabs from campus to your house. They host festivals where you meet celebrities and student shows exhibiting their works. SCAD definitely appeals to the masses.
There are, however, some downsides that you couldn’t imagine being there until you become a SCAD Bee. SCAD doesn't offer enough support for students. The student body has been asking for an increase in mental health services and altering tuition fees since the pandemic began. Other changes to be had are allowing plus-sized models to be cast in fashion shows, providing funding for student clubs, and softening absence rules. It just felt like the school didn’t necessarily do anything for students that didn’t benefit them cost-wise. Even when suicide rates skyrocketed, there was no change in the way SCAD handled the issue. Most of the university, if not all of it, is a big marketing scheme; a business, a modern-day “nonprofit” corporation. So by entering this academic community, you agree to be a part of the show.
With all of this being said, this money-hungry infrastructure benefits graduates. There are so many job opportunities and perks that come from this agreement after you have graduated from this nightmare. It’s a win that comes at the cost of students’ mental well-being, creative blocks, and countless sleepless nights.
Madison Caprara:
That’s disappointing to hear, and an issue many who have chosen the more “traditional” path of education are being forced to make peace with when the realization strikes that these large entities really don’t care about the individual.
Madison Caprara:
Now, do you have any tidbits of advice for students who may be thinking about entering the motion design world?
Kristina Sharabinskaia:
I feel like you really need to understand what it is about before entering it. Figure out what exactly you want to do as your job. Try to reach out to some people in the industry, invite them for a coffee, or even email them to ask questions. If they’re not busy, they will be happy to get back to you. Most of us professionals are happy to connect, even through email. But don’t frown if a person doesn’t get to you, I’m sure they feel bad for not doing so.
Madison Caprara:
If you had to choose one creative collaborator for an important project, who would you count on?
Kristina Sharabinskaia:
When I had initially started working at a Scholar, my guide from the start was Madison Ellis. She worked as an Art Director for my first Taco Bell project. Madison was incredibly positive and encouraging. She had also graduated from SCAD two years before I did. We hit it off right from the start. She is a talented director and her feedback helped to improve my work by miles. In the end, she would always ask if you were happy with your result. It really showed how much she would listen when solving creative problems together. I’ve never actually met her in person, but her memes would always crack me up and make my day!
Black Lives Matter, 2021. Kristina Sharabinskaia.
Madison Caprara:
What do you believe are some of the benefits of working with colleagues as opposed to going at it alone?
Kristina Sharabinskaia:
Working with other creatives helps me keep myself accountable for meeting deadlines and the precision of my work. Processes like brainstorming and overcoming creative blocks as a team are easier as opposed to facing the struggle alone. Your capacity of work goes down when with colleagues because you're not made to wear multiple hats. So yeah, I love teamwork! It’s efficient, fun, and your opportunities to come up with ideas are expanded with multiple points of view.
Madison Caprara:
You’ve worked with some top-tier studios: Scholar, State Design, and as you said, you are currently working at The Mill. How have those experiences been for you?
Kristina Sharabinskaia:
Everything I have expected and, at the same time, very different. I had a good understanding that the motion industry had a certain structure of work: the advertising agency sends a script, then you pitch to the agency. If you win, you first would start with mood boards, gathering references, creating style frames, and sharing the overall vision of the project. After the client’s approval, you move to animation. Normally, designers would work almost simultaneously with animators and slowly connect all the pieces of the puzzle together. Art and creative directors oversee the project, share notes with the clients and the team while keeping everyone on schedule. This pretty much sums up the process.
Studios like to keep a similar routine and follow a similar creative process, despite the size of the company. So I found myself fitting into the routine easily. The transition began after I gained more experience with different studios. I found that people had a huge impact on the energy in the company. If there was a micromanaging producer, it would impact the speed of communication. If a creative director is stressed about the project, it would cause the whole team to be nervous too. It’s never really about business and money, but the time you get to know your colleagues as people, not employees. I learned to appreciate a good afternoon of laughter and discussion of new Netflix shows.
Madison Caprara:
That’s a great takeaway. Humans really are at the heart of every company.
Madison Caprara:
With your history of landing work at various reputable studios, what is your opinion on showreels vs. individual clips when landing a gig? In your experience, which should be prioritized?
2021. Kristina Sharabinskaia.
Kristina Sharabinskaia:
I mean, you need both. I’ve gone to college fairs and other opportunities to land gigs with both ready to show, and STILL wouldn't end up nailing an internship. My friends did, though, in some instances. So, I’d say it’s helpful to have them, but they’re not a guarantee to magically find work. Sometimes all that matters is networking and knowing the right people to be the applicant who lands the job.
Madison Caprara:
Do you have an all-time favorite project that you have worked on?
Kristina Sharabinskaia:
I haven’t been in the industry for long enough to fall in love with a specific project, yet. Most of the time the ideas get so diversified and changed throughout, that you can barely take credit for your own input. I guess I have an idea for a perfect project where I would be an art director for the project, and so far those have been social media pieces for Instagram during my free time. If I had to pick a favorite, it would probably be an illustration for a podcast cover I did a year ago called “Empathy Bro”. I really liked it because the host of the podcast was a small business owner, and the process of working with her was more to the ground and personal. We would facetime each other, I’d film myself sketching ideas, and we’d brainstorm together.
Madison Caprara:
In your opinion, what are some of the current visual trends motion designers should be focusing on?
planeta., 2020. Kristina Sharabinskaia.
Kristina Sharabinskaia:
A mix of 2D and 3D has a certain appeal. The combination of the different stylistic approaches uplift art to be more unique, and being unique is always something people look out for when trying to find inspiration.
Madison Caprara:
What is your favorite thing about working in motion design? Are there any misconceptions that come with being a designer?
Kristina Sharabinskaia:
Yes. One thing in particular that I wasn’t necessarily surprised to find out was truthful but confirmed what I’ve heard before from many teachers and designers in motion. When you create something in a group of people, not all of your ideas get heard or even executed. Sometimes I would spend weeks designing characters for an environment, but in the end, the idea just ends up dusting away on a cloud. And sometimes it’s hard not to take it personally, but it’s work, there is always tomorrow.
Madison Caprara:
Where do you get inspiration from when creating this work?
Kristina Sharabinskaia:
Pinterest, mostly. And Netflix’s Arcane: League of Legends. But I intensively follow artists I like and get inspired by their work. A few of the great ones in motion design are Ori Toor, Sarah Beth Morgan, Rune Fisker...Their work is unified by bright colors and the appeal to animation, meaning their work looks like it could move.
My personal art style is just a repetition of other artists’ work. I pick the inspiration, mix, match, and imitate. In the end, it still comes out differently, even though almost none of my ideas are mine in the beginning. References rule!
Madison Caprara:
I love the self-awareness, Kristina! It’s really refreshing!
We’re reaching the end of our time together, unfortunately. Is there anything in particular that you would like to touch on before we go?
Kristina Sharabinskaia:
Yes! I’d like to end with a piece of wisdom for fresh talent. There is nothing wrong with promoting your work on social media. For me, my presence on socials has helped me to make a lot of friends in the industry as well as to find work and even be discovered. Marketing my Instagram and Behance, and posting projects on Linkedin played out very well for me. After all, I got my art on a beer can because of social media!
Abstract+Architecture, 2021. Kristina Sharabinskaia.
Takeover Tuesday with AppleButter Animated
Q&A with Megan Jedrysiak and Jackson Ammenheuser, Co-Founders of AppleButter Animated.
Q&A with AppleButter Animated
Read time: 10min
Sprite Way Series | Studio: Protokulture, Animation: Jackson Ammenheuser and Megan Jedrysiak
Madison Caprara:
Hey, you two!
Why don’t you both give me a little intro to who you are? How did you find yourselves in this industry? What initially attracted you to the field?
AppleButter Animated:
We are Megan Jedrysiak and Jackson Ammenheuser, Co-Founders of AppleButter Animated, based out of Chicago. We love to skate, play soccer, sing karaoke, and eat food. When we aren’t doing those things, we like to experiment with animation production practices! Lately, we’ve been expanding our efforts in the motion process by taking elements of digital animation (graphics, motion, sound, automation) and presenting them in both physical and streaming spaces with our own machines and graphics.
We both studied Animation at DePaul University and jumped into freelance work right out of school. I wouldn’t suggest going straight to freelance to anyone today, but it luckily worked out for us. We were both initially attracted to the independence and energy of experimental animation, and loved that you didn’t need to wait for an art show, or a budget, or a crew. You don’t need to ask permission to do anything, just go animate!
Madison Caprara:
I’m assuming you both met in one of your Animation courses, or..?
AppleButter Animated:
We actually met in a computer lab at DePaul.
We would work on 3D animation homework together. It involved a lot of sugary snack consumption and Megan playing cool music videos. Eventually, we started dating, made a few projects together, and chose to continue doing so after graduation, mostly so that we could continue to eat snacks and watch cool music videos together while we worked.
Madison Caprara:
A pretty enviable meet-cute!
So, how did AppleButter Animated come to be? Was there a particular influence or circumstance that prompted you to start the studio?
AppleButter Animated:
AppleButter started right when we graduated university, seven years ago. We wanted to keep making our own work and gave it a shot! We figured that we could always jump ship and go to a 9-5 if there was a disaster. It was a struggle for the first few years, including a couple of side hustles, but we got there! We were hugely inspired by our friends Nick and Nadine, who run a two-person graphic art studio in Chicago, Sonnenzimmer. They seemed to have it all as a couple with a small creative business and art practice. We thought we would try the same thing!
GFXi | Client: GFXi, Animation: Jackson Ammenheuser, Design: Megan Jedrysiak
Madison Caprara:
A pretty courageous endeavor being new graduates!
How would you describe the studio’s style?
AppleButter Animated:
We like to make things fast, at least in animator terms. I hope that comes across in our style. There’s this idea that animation has to take forever to be good, and we just don’t believe that. Our work ranges in style, but almost every one of our projects takes less than a week to make.
We strive to make hybrid-style energetic work that leaves an impression and might make you double-take. We like to wait for ideas that make you laugh even if they’re not funny. Some of our best ideas emulate jokes in that way, or at least point to a punchline.
Madison Caprara:
I see that you specialize in short-form animation and interactive art. What draws you to the two?
AppleButter Animated:
We get excited about all things motion. Deep down, robotics and animation are extremely similar on a structural level: build a thing and make it move. Even Megan’s painting work breaks down a 2D image informed by motion in our animation practice. We are really attracted to that energy that you can give an object, space, or video when you make it move. There is a lot of power there, we hope to push what animation means way outside of motion graphics and the moving image ballpark.
Madison Caprara:
How does the studio work in terms of project selection, work process, etc.? How do you go about delineating tasks between the two of you?
AppleButter Animated:
We like to say that Megan is great at starting things and Jackson is good at finishing them.
That pretty much describes our pipeline most of the time. Megan has a much stronger art and drawing background, while Jackson studied the more 3D and technical side of creative. Megan will typically kick ideas off with research, drawings, boards, and styleframes, then we’ll meet in the middle to do design, motion tests, and development. Typically Jackson will do the final motion, VFX, and polish. There is a lot of collaboration and discussion at all points but that vaguely fits most of the time.
Madison Caprara:
That being said, what do you both look for when taking on a project? What has you giving an automatic, “yes”?
AppleButter Animated:
For commercial work, an automatic “yes” is a good producer! Having the budget, timeline, scope, mood, brand guidelines, all laid out before we even speak is the dream! When it comes to ad work, we care more about working with good folks and being treated with respect than working on the “sickest” projects.
For our artwork, we love to collaborate and interact with friends. Our animation work was so siloed for a long time, and we’re really over that style of making. We live for that back and forth of ideas between collaborators, even when it all goes wrong. Sharing the highs and lows and taking a leap together is what it’s all about.
Madison Caprara:
Speaking on collaboration, do you ever outsource talent for larger projects?
AppleButter Animated:
We try to do 100% of the work ourselves. We’re just not that type of studio that hires out other animation freelancers. If we can’t do a project for whatever reason, we try to pass along the work to friends! We enjoy working with musicians, directors, and writers of course, but for the animation work, we plan on keeping it between the two of us.
Madison Caprara:
And what has been your favorite project to date?
AppleButter Animated:
Our favorite project was a duo gallery show at Public Works Gallery. We pulled it off right before the pandemic. The show allowed us to try so many new ideas that would be exhibited in a physical space. World-building is inherent in animated films, but films are typically viewed in a 2D space. We were able to produce a more immersive world with our animation, paintings, and painting robot living together all in one space. That process and engagement from all the folks who showed up inspired us. We're hoping to push further into that space over the next couple of years.
Madison Caprara:
Well, the exhibition looked incredible! Readers can find it here.
Madison Caprara:
When needed, where do you go for inspiration?
AppleButter Animated:
We try to look beyond film for inspiration. Engaging with stories and visual languages as much as possible, and seeking out new experiences informs our vision. If we’re stuck or looking for something new, we go for a walk, develop recipes, eat a good snack, look at paintings, read books or comics, garden, and talk with friends. Looking at a problem from a wider view usually helps us understand what we’re really trying to get at.
Also, this isn't traditional inspiration, but whenever we need some energy in the moment, say a project is going poorly, or we lost the thread of an idea, we always pull up an old friend’s class film. He made it in a late-night daze for an experimental animation class. The assignment was misunderstood by most of the class and the professor was not happy during the screening, but this project was the cherry on top. It just went really wrong, including some major sound goofs, and somehow it went wrong just enough times to turn into one of our all-time favorite films. It brings back the wild energy we love every time.
Away From Keyboard Residency | WNDR Museum, Chicago
Madison Caprara:
What were some of the best decisions you’ve made vs ones you wish you could redo? As a studio or even individual artists?
AppleButter Animated:
Collaborating with friends and being a part of our larger animation and art community has been our most positive experience as artists and animators. We’ve learned so much working with great folks on personal projects and commercial ones. It opens up a field of possibilities from collaborating with one friend, to working with a group at a studio, to inviting a general internet audience to work with us on a robotic painting.
Our biggest mistake is the other side of that coin, which is initially believing that animation and art need to be this silo-ed sport. I think many could attest to the running joke of the lone animation martyr stuck in their cave. And maybe that’s how you like to work, but it doesn’t have to be that way!
Madison Caprara:
I’m sure some folks out there can definitely relate.
What advice would you give to someone thinking of starting a studio?
AppleButter Animated:
For people who generally want to step away from full-time employment and do their own thing, I would suggest doing your research, understanding your safety net, and talking to people who are where you want to be! For us, that meant talking to our studio idols about all sorts of things from clients to art galleries to day-to-day expectations. Jackson talked to his parents about helping us if we got into a bind, luckily we’ve avoided needing help. But it is important to know it’s there and recognize that we couldn’t have done this without that privilege. We also read everything we could about freelance, from books like The Freelance Manifesto, to online forums, and going to local mo-graph meetups and animation festivals.
Madison Caprara:
Are there any big upcoming projects in development we should be looking out for from AppleButter?
AppleButter Animated:
As spaces are starting to open again, we have a few space-based ideas we are pitching around that we love! One involves a DIY Smart CRT TV that would serve as an ongoing local animation festival with a vintage edge, think flipping through channels and classic commercials. We're working on adding a comparative graphic vision system to our painting machine, this process would compare the live painting to a graphic or photo, and update accordingly. And we’re excited about this new 3D smear style that we’ve been having a lot of fun with on Instagram.
Madison Caprara:
That sounds really exciting! After a year+ of social isolation, an interactive exhibit is particularly enticing.
Unfortunately, we’re reaching the end of our time together. It’s been really great getting to know a bit more about the two of you and your studio. Is there any closing point or piece of advice you would like to end our chat with?
AppleButter Animated:
Have fun! Speak from what you know, be open to learning and making mistakes, and be the kind of nerd that only you can be!
The Start of STATE, with Dash Bash speaker, Marcel Ziul
Meryn Hayes had a chat with Marcel Ziul, Creative Director and Founder of STATE.
Growing up in the suburbs of Sao Paulo, Ziul moved to the U.S. in 2007 after working with some of the top studios in Brazil. Read on to learn more about his journey and how STATE came to be.
Q&A with Marcel Ziul
Read time: 10 min
Meryn Hayes:
Today I’m speaking with Marcel Ziul from STATE design, welcome.
Marcel Ziul:
Thanks for having me.
Meryn Hayes:
Marcel is a Creative Director and founder of STATE. Growing up in the suburbs of Sao Paulo, he moved to the U.S. in 2007. As a freelancer, he has contributed his talents to Prologue Films, Stardust, Zoic Studios, Troika, Shilo, Apple, MAL/TBWA, and Bigstar, where he served as an Art Director and Lead Animator on the Bio Channel rebrand.
Marcel’s amazing work is highlighted by several awards and nominations.
Meryn Hayes:
We're so excited. The Bash is getting close. I feel like we've been planning it for so long and now it's actually happening. The more we talk to our speakers, the more excited I'm getting, and the less stressed I'm feeling about the logistics.
Marcel Ziul:
I know. It's exciting. I was thinking the other day, the conference is happening in September, but September is already here. Now I need to take a look at my keynotes.
Meryn Hayes:
It's time to start prepping.
Marcel Ziul:
Exactly.
Meryn Hayes:
Awesome. Do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into the industry?
Marcel Ziul:
Yeah. I joined the industry totally out of the blue. I was going to med school, actually, and realized that it wasn't for me. My dad saw me through that process. He owned clubs back in Brazil and I used to do all the flyers for them. He was like, “dude, you love designing, why don't you talk to a friend of mine who has a studio? Maybe he can get you an internship?" I went there, talked to the guy, and started as their PA. I was doing things for shoots, organizing cables, all of that.
I would stay at the studio from 6 AM until I finished my shift at 6 PM. Even then, I’d stay longer to go to the post-production room to ask the guys questions. I was doing tutorials at that time. One day the main 3D guy was on vacation and they had to animate a logo. My boss needed to find a freelancer and asked if anyone knew someone that could tackle it. I said, "I can do it, I've been doing tutorials. I can do this thing." It came out good. From there, I was promoted to the post-production side.
Marcel Ziul:
This was all in my hometown. My town is medium-sized. It has almost a million people and is close to Sao Paulo, but the industry is super small. It's not big, so I wanted to go somewhere else. I moved to Sao Paulo and started working with bigger shops, doing my thing. After that, I went to Rio to work in this big production house. Then I moved to LA. Here I am.
Meryn Hayes:
That's awesome. It's so interesting, I've talked with a few people throughout the industry about this. Sometimes when people are getting started in their careers, they realize something's just not working. For example, you tried med school…It’s easy to think of these times as points where we're failing ourselves.
I started out doing photography and realized halfway through college that I didn’t want to move to New York to be a photographer. I was really hard on myself but realized through those curves of my career path that finding out what you don't want to do is as important as finding out what you do want to do. You find your way to where you're supposed to be through those challenges and moments where you're identifying, “Is this what I want for myself?”
Meryn Hayes:
Med school is a really big deal and hard to get into. Was that a tough decision for you? It sounds like you had a lot of support from your family, which I'm sure helped.
Marcel Ziul:
Well, it wasn't a hard decision for me. You're right about knowing what you don't like to do. It's important. I usually say this to clients when I present something for them, let's say, mood boards. I say, if you don't know what you like, just tell me what you don't like.
Meryn Hayes:
Totally.
Marcel Ziul:
But in regards to transitioning from med school to this industry, I don't think it was a hard decision. It was a moment of clarity. When I think back, my dad had such a vision, that he too realized, "Dude, you don't like this. Why are you going to continue?" It's also hard to be 100% sure of what you're going to do when you're younger. We all carry that pressure and feel that we need to know.
“STATE, meaning the state of mind, or ‘this is your state.’ this is a place where you can come and be yourself…”
No, sometimes you need to make decisions and that's the beauty of this thing, you can just re-correct. When I started working at the studio, I could tell it was right because I was putting in so many hours after work. Let's say I would work in the studio from 9 AM to 6 PM and then at 6 PM, I would go to the post-production division and stay there with the guys. I was putting in all the hours. It was a passion. To me, it was an easy decision.
Meryn Hayes:
That's so interesting. Then what? You moved to LA. What year was that?
Marcel Ziul:
I moved to LA in 2007--I'm going to talk about this in my keynote. The funny thing is that in Brazil, things are so different. There is a lack of planning, not that the U.S. has the best planning efforts, but we plan stuff better here in the States than in Brazil. I got tired of that. I got tired of the disorganization, working crazy hours, and having no weekends for six months. It was time for me to go and do other things. I was in between the U.S. and Australia.
Marcel Ziul:
I had a studio in Sydney that wanted to hire me, but I was really into the studios here in the U.S. I came to LA and met with a studio called Belief. It's old. I don't think people are going to remember it, but Belief was like BUCK back in the day; the go-to studio. Everyone wanted to work there.
I talked to Belief and they wanted to hire me. It was so awesome. I went back to Brazil and said, "Well, I'm moving to the States. Bye." They did all of my paperwork because it's such a big deal. One thing that people here in the U.S. don't realize is that when you hire someone from a different country, it is a big deal for a foreigner. You have no clue. I remember going to my farewell party with all of my friends and family there. Everyone was crying. It's not an easy thing to do. It's not like moving from New York to LA.
Marcel Ziul:
For us, it's a huge deal. I would never have expected that I would be here for this much time, but I love it. I would stay longer for sure.
Meryn Hayes:
So you were working in LA, what led to the start of STATE? How did that happen?
Marcel Ziul:
That's an interesting question. It was mid-2013, until that point, I was a freelancer. I was also doing projects on the side with a friend of mine, Marcos, who's an amazing Art Director and Creative Director--he's awesome, we're still friends. We were doing projects on the side where we would get the overflow work from studios and do it ourselves. We had a space and it was like we were in this limbo mode: do a project, go back to freelancing with studios, do another project, more freelancing. I got tired of it. This whole movement. We weren’t a studio and we weren’t freelancing a hundred percent.
I felt the necessity to create something I could put all of my time into. I talked to a friend of mine about building a studio. He wasn't ready for that. He wanted to be a director. So, I decided to move to New York. I was tired of LA; Hollywood, the flashy people. I wanted to go somewhere else, but then something crazy happened. I was doing my green card at the time and I needed letters of support to show to immigration so that I could stay in the U.S. as a resident.
Marcel Ziul:
I called the NFL and asked, "Hey, you guys tried to hire me in the past. Could you write me a letter stating that?" The guy never got back to me. Two weeks go by, I'm like, "Oh snap." I sent another email. Finally, he responded and asked if I could come by the next day. I showed up and he started talking to me about a project I had no idea about. I asked why he was talking to me about a project when I had come for a letter. I didn’t get it. He was like, "Letter, what letter? Dude, I thought you were here for work.” He ended up giving me the letter and telling me he’d call in a month.
Marcel Ziul:
A month later, he called me with a project. By then I had realized that I did not want to work with a friend of mine. I wanted to build something. My wife came to me and said, "Hey, I can be the producer on the project. Then we can hire other people. What do you think?" I agreed and we took on the first project. We did another one and another after that. We did maybe three to four projects with the NFL when one day, Carlos came to me with an offer.
Carlos was a client of the NFL. He's an amazing friend. I love that guy so much. He came to me with “the biggest project of the season.” No pitch needed, he wanted to give it to me. The only kicker was that I couldn’t work from home. I needed to have a space because he needed to be able to take his boss to an official office. With bigger projects, you need more stuff.
Meryn Hayes:
Show me you're legitimate.
Marcel Ziul:
He gave me two weeks to pull that together. One of the producers on the NFL side was a friend of mine--Joe Nash. He's now an Executive Producer at BUCK, but back then he was leaving the NFL. Carlos suggested Joe and I get together to do the project. Joe came to work as the producer and then we got a space together.
It felt right. We loved working together. We loved each other. We asked ourselves, “Why don't we become partners and build a studio?” Then, STATE was born. It happened out of the blue. It wasn't something planned or structured.
Meryn Hayes:
It's funny. There are a lot of ways to start a studio, but that's similar to what happened with Mack and Cory. They were working at an agency--that's where I met them--they got a project that they were going to take on freelance, and they decided they were going to leave the agency to do it. Then, they started working together and ‘Mack and Cory’ turned into dash. How long were y'all working together on that project for the NFL?
Marcel Ziul:
We worked on the project for about four months. It was huge. We had to shoot and everything. In the middle of this whole project, we liked working together so much. Joe and I were like, “oh man, now let's get a space, and let's keep this going. You're the Creative Director, I'm the EP, let's go.” He started doing business development, and we began to get a bunch of small projects. Like really small projects, but for us it was awesome.
Joe was with STATE for another year, then I think...I don't know. I don't want to put words in his mouth, but I think it was too much for him to be the owner. The responsibility and the hours. Once you become the owner of the studio, there's no more nine to six. It's nine to whatever. Joe decided to leave because he wanted to do something else. He wanted to be a farmer. He went back to Connecticut to pursue that.
Meryn Hayes:
That's awesome!
So, where does STATE’s name come from? How did y'all come up with that?
Marcel Ziul:
It's funny because we had another art director who was supposed to be with us as a partner. The three of us were all trying to bounce names around and what we came with was just bad. We came up with ridiculous names and Joe's mom, she's a consultant for Google, was like, "send me your name ideas and I'll let you know if you guys are heading to the right direction,” as far as branding and recognition go. We sent the names to her and she told us they were all terrible. Eventually, we came up with STATE, meaning the state of mind, or ‘this is your state.’ This is a place where you can come and be yourself, something like that. She liked it! Short, strong, and has good meaning behind it.
Meryn Hayes:
Awesome. In the beginning, those early days, what were some of the challenges you didn't expect to be dealing with?
Marcel Ziul:
Well, there's a funny story. We started our studio. Right? Cool. We booked a few freelancers. I was working one day and one of them came to me and said, "Hey, Marcel, can I talk to you?" All I could think about was how awesome this was. He was running a project at MY studio, and now he needs to talk to me. He comes to me, and he's like, "Hey we need toilet paper." I'm like, "Oh God, this is the shit that we have to deal with."
That was the first wake-up call. I realized that we needed to take care of the space and have things in place. Structured. Having a studio is like having a kid. I mean, I have two kids and love them to death. They are my life, but it's so hard as a parent because it's a 24-hour thing. I'm always there and always taking care of them--they're two and six. The company is the same. If I tell someone who wants to have a kid how hard it is, people will never have kids.
Marcel Ziul:
They'll be like, “Forget about this. You're not going to sleep. You're going to do this. You're going to do that. Whatever.” Having a company is the same.
Meryn Hayes:
Same way.
“…when something becomes a business, a really big business, it loses its soul.”
Marcel Ziul:
It's the same way. There are hard problems. If someone tells you beforehand, you wouldn’t want to have a studio, but I think the biggest fear for me, in the beginning, was the cash flow. We got projects and you feel good, but now you need money to produce the projects. You need to have money to finance the project, then get paid later. We have to develop a system for that. It was pretty cool, but for me, just that anxiety of not knowing was hard. The business side of it was pretty intense.
Meryn Hayes:
I have a four-and-a-half-year-old, and I can totally empathize. I think for so long, I felt like a bad mom because nobody talks about how hard it is. I was just like, “is it me?” Then I realized that nobody talks about it. It's just hard. I like that comparison, that if people talked about how hard it was to start a business or a studio, they wouldn't do it because it is hard.
Mack and Cory, when I met them, they were animators. Now they own this business. They can empathize with the whole mindset shifting from a creative to the business side and how different that is. Do you feel you just had to figure it out on your own? Or did you have resources early on that were helping you figure out the business side of things? Because that's just something that if you're not used to it, it's out of left field for a lot of creatives.
Marcel Ziul:
This is a good question because I never understood what my dad used to do with me in terms of preparing me for the world. He always had his own business and he was always teaching me things. I remember going to my dad’s work helping him at his business and I would complain about something. I'd be like, "Hey dad, did you see that thing is broken?" He would be like, "You already identified that it's broken. Why don't you go and fix it? You know the problem. How do you solve it?" He was always giving me that mindset. I used to hate when he would say that to me.
Then when I started running STATE, I realized how necessary those lessons were, because I saw all the problems and was already thinking about how to solve them. The transition from being an artist to a business owner wasn't that hard for me because I was trained for it by my parents. But if you're not ready, some give up along the way.
Marcel Ziul:
I think the biggest hurdle I had to overcome was learning when to be the creative director and when to be the owner. It's like being an animator and a designer at the same time.
Meryn Hayes:
That's so interesting and such an important mindset because again, you're trying to make the best creative possible. Taking the side of the business, which might impact what you'd say about the creative direction and focusing on the project or the client or the creative or whatever the task is. To your point, you can figure out the logistics or the cost or the extra stuff on the other side, but to focus on the creative, to make sure that it really shines through. That's great advice. How big is the studio now?
Marcel Ziul:
I think STATE has a staff of 20 to 25 now.
Meryn Hayes:
In those early days, how conscious were you of how many you wanted on staff? Was growth more so based on the creative needs for client work and projects?
Marcel Ziul:
Our biggest thing when building the studio was going back to how we started this conversation--we knew what we didn't want to be. We didn't want to be like the big studios because I believe that when something becomes a business, a really big business, it loses its soul. Most of this is because I believe that when clients look at STATE, they can see our soul. They can see how much heart we put into our projects. I always thought that if we got too big, we would lose that component, which is so important to me.
I never thought about having a studio with 25 people. Did I want to have a studio that had 50 people? Maybe not, maybe I'm fine with 25, maybe I'm fine with 20. Maybe I'm fine with 15. To me, it's all about measuring how much heart is still coming out of STATE. If we’re still producing with passion and people can see our soul, cool. If that component starts getting lost, then we're getting too big in terms of structure. But I never had that mindset of exactly how many people we needed.
Meryn Hayes:
That's great. I’ll probably steal that quote. I love that. Measuring how much heart. Sometimes people can get too caught up in the tangible aspect. I mean, I understand businesses have to be tangible for many reasons, but I love the idea of keeping on the pulse of how it’s feeling. The soul of the work that's coming out. So, you were in New York when you started and now you're back in LA. Is that right?
Marcel Ziul:
No. I never moved to New York. I was moving but then…
Meryn Hayes:
Then STATE was born, so you never left.
Marcel Ziul:
Yeah. Never did.
Meryn Hayes:
I was like, “how did you get back to LA?” But you never left.
Marcel Ziul:
Never left. We never made the move, which is something that, every time I go to New York, is the biggest frustration of my life. I never lived in the city. I think I needed that, but it's fine. Now I'm at a different point in my life. I can go to New York anytime.
Just quickly going back to that heart thing, I was talking to a friend of mine the other day. This guy is so amazing. He’s unbelievable. Every time I talk to him, he’s like, “I have three businesses. Now, I have five businesses.” He's always building. At one point, he was going through a rough time. He has a studio back home, back in Brazil. I told him this. I said, "You know what's happening with you? You were putting money ahead of everything. Your end goal is always cash. I can guarantee to you I never put money ahead of STATE, no." I said, “all you have to do is work hard, and love what you do. Do you show up excited about this business? Can people see that through your words? Through your work? Through your conversations? Yes?” If people see that, money becomes a consequence.
“when you say no to others, you're saying yes to yourself. we look at ‘no’ as a crime…those ‘nos’ got me here.”
Marcel Ziul:
Like at STATE, if you could see the amount of work that we say no to because these projects have nothing to do with what we are. They’re just going to be about the money. If it's just money, you lose the soul. We're not doing our thing. It misses the mission statement of the studio which is what’s important. A few days later, he called me. He had gotten rid of two of his businesses and is now just focusing on the studio.
Meryn Hayes:
That's great. That's something that I think is difficult for people, in general, to say no to from a business perspective. Especially for people who are just starting in their freelance career or are just starting a studio. Saying no is especially hard because of the money. Do you think that that's something that's gotten easier? Or would you say that y'all were just as willing to say “no” early on to keep up with the soul of the studio? Has it gotten any easier over time?
Marcel Ziul:
It gets easier. My wife once said something to me that was cool. She said, “when you say no to others, you're saying yes to yourself.” We look at “no” as a crime. My whole keynote at the Dash Bash should be talking about the power of “no”. How “no” got me here. Am I the most successful studio out there? No. Am I the most successful person to myself? Maybe, yes? I'm happy with me. Those “no’s” got me here.
Even the way that you take on rejection is important. For example, I've seen people when they lose pitches. They get so mad. But there's always a victory when pitching. You pitch them something and if you get a “no”, you go back and ask why you got the rejection from your client. Is it because of your idea? Was it because of a business relationship? You find so many important answers through “nos” that we don't even realize.
Meryn Hayes:
I love that. The introspection. It's so easy to get caught up in why you didn't win a pitch or why the client didn't like something. But I really appreciate the introspection of learning from why something didn’t work.
Early on as a Producer, I didn't know how to talk to clients or I didn't know the answer to a question. Just take a breath. Take a minute and figure it out. Learn from whatever the client is saying or the issue and you can move forward. We sometimes feel as if we need to say “yes” or have an answer right away. There's that service side of what we do that pushes people to overcome it or to say that they know how to do something when they don't. To your point of being introspective and taking a look at why we are doing something, that's meaningful.
Marcel Ziul:
When we do post mortem on a project--we do that a lot at STATE--after we finish a project, we get everyone together and talk about it. What did we learn? We did a project for this big client that I'm not going to disclose because, of course, they're my friends, but we did a project for this big client. I was trying to work with them for five years. Five years! Going to meetings, visiting, taking them to lunches and dinners, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, everything. We got the project. That's cool. We start the project. Good budget and everything, and then financially, the project was a disaster.
How the hell we blew up that budget, I didn't understand. Looking back, the client was confused most of the time. They didn't know what they wanted. I think they became so excited about the relationship, that when they got to work with us, they wanted to do everything at once. After we delivered the project, we came back to our post-mortem to talk about it and something that came to my mind was the price of education. We pay for education. You go to college, you pay. You want to take a class, you pay. It's the same thing in business. Sometimes you have to pay to learn from your clients.
Marcel Ziul:
So, we blew up the budget. There's a way to go about processing that. You can either look at it as you blew it up because you did the project wrong, OR you can see it as a learning experience. We were learning how to work with that particular client. Now, if we do another project with them, we know how they work. You can always see things as an absolute failure or you can analyze the negativity that came with it. There's always something that you learn through mistakes.
Meryn Hayes:
That's so true. The value of a project, even when it doesn't go right, is that you learned how to work with the other person, which is different from client to client. Sometimes when you're going through it, it's a struggle. Then you're able to step back and breathe and really look retrospectively. Do you always do post mortems with the clients?
“we pay for education. you go to college, you pay. you want to take a class, you pay. it's the same thing in business. sometimes you have to pay to learn your clients.”
Marcel Ziul:
Only sometimes with the clients. Some clients are not open to it. We always do it internally though because there's always something you're going to take away. When you're in the middle of a project, it can feel pretty awkward and uncomfortable. What I learned is that the biggest issue with our industry, there are a lot, but the biggest issue is communication.
For example, let's talk about notes. You get a note from a client that has five paragraphs. All they want to say is to make the composition a little brighter. But instead of saying that in one sentence, they write a novel to you. Communication is a huge deal. Not a lot of people know how to communicate with a few words.
Meryn Hayes:
You have to translate what they're saying.
Marcel Ziul:
Then you read it and realize that all they want is to make that object in the background red.
Meryn Hayes:
It's like…you wrote all that to say that?
Thinking about the business side of what we do is something that's not learned in school. The other thing is communication and providing feedback. I went to art school for photography and we had all kinds of critiques, but it's not inherent. You have to learn to give good feedback. That goes both for other creatives and for clients. To your point, education is so important. Sometimes it's lost on us because we live in this world. We know what feedback we're looking for, but if this is the first time that the clients have worked with us or the first time they've ever done video animation, we forget that they might not know everything. You don't know what you don't know. That education is just so crucial.
Marcel Ziul:
This is so silly. How many times you were on a call and then the client gave you a note and you're like, “Okay, cool. No worries.” Then you hang up and you're like, “I have no clue.” It happens a lot.
Meryn Hayes:
It happened like three times today.
Marcel Ziul:
One way that I learned how to make sure you and the clients are on the same level is just through honesty. They give me a note that I don't understand, I tell them I don't understand it. There was a moment a couple of weeks ago, we were on a call with this huge client. He gave me an explanation of what he wanted and then asked if I understood. I immediately said, no. I could tell that he got uncomfortable. I was uncomfortable too. We were on the same level. We talked through the notes, and he explained it to me again. I went back to the team, fixed the problem, and sent it back. He was like, “dude, awesome, approved!”
Meryn Hayes:
Perfect.
Marcel Ziul:
If I had said okay and went back to my team, I would have had no clue what to do. All you want is to be on the same level as your client so that you can all understand each other, which is hard to do. It's not easy to say I don't understand. We feel the pressure to say we got it. We're so smart. We understand everything you say. No, sometimes there is confusion too.
Meryn Hayes:
Totally. It goes back to what I was thinking earlier, the pressure of feeling you're always supposed to know the answer. You can read the client's mind, it will, to your point, save a lot of back and forth and confusion to just clear the air and be like, “I don't understand.” But it's hard for people.
Marcel Ziul:
It's hard to be vulnerable. People are afraid and that goes back to what I was saying at the beginning. It's so key to feel comfortable being vulnerable. It's fine to not have an answer. I make bad decisions too. Sometimes I don't know what I'm doing and that’s ok.
Meryn Hayes:
That's so important. That's great. Let's see. How has the last year been for y'all? Do you feel the pandemic in the last 18 months has shifted how you work?
“it's hard to be vulnerable. people are afraid…it's so key to feel comfortable being vulnerable. it's fine to not have an answer. I make bad decisions too. sometimes I don't know what I'm doing and that’s ok.”
Marcel Ziul:
Well, yes and no. For STATE, diversity has always been a big thing for us. I have always worked with people from all around the world. I don’t care if someone is in whatever country, different times. I kick off artists at midnight. No problem. If they're in Europe and I want to work with someone there, I'll do it. In that aspect, it didn't change much.
What did take a little bit of time for the team was understanding how to work from home. It took us about one to two months to understand that flow. I have to say, workflow didn't change as much because we're always busy, but I did miss seeing other people. I'm a people person. I miss that interaction. But as far as the studio, it was a smooth transition. I care about how people feel these days, because of mental health, especially Zoom. I can do three Zooms in a row, but I need a 15-minute break after. I’ll even push calls unless it's with a client.
Marcel Ziul:
We had to adapt a little bit here and there, especially with the servers. I'm sure you guys have to do the same, but we had the system already set up. It wasn't that hard. The only big thing that happened was we signed a new lease for a new space a week before the lockdown.
Meryn Hayes:
No!
Marcel Ziul:
We have a new space that no one has ever been to.
Meryn Hayes:
Oh my gosh. That's wild.
Well, we are almost out of time, but I just want to say this was awesome. I am so looking forward to your presentation and hearing everybody celebrate and clap for you. We'll grab a beer after and celebrate. Thank you so much for giving all your insights. You have such an interesting story. I know everybody at the Bash is going to be stoked to hear what you have to say.
Marcel Ziul:
I'm super excited. I have so much respect for what you guys are doing, so whatever I can support I'll be up for it.
Meryn Hayes:
Thank you. We really appreciate that.
Marcel Ziul:
Bye Meryn, bye.
Meryn Hayes:
Bye.
Starting a Studio with OK Motion Club
dash’s Producer, Meryn Hayes, sat down with Dash Bash speakers, Amanda Schrembeck and Linda McNeil, of OK Motion Club.
OK Motion Club is an Atlanta-based animation studio that specializes in short-form content. Their goal is to empower other women, non-binary people, and minorities within the industry.
Q&A with OK Motion Club
Read time: 15 min
Meryn Hayes:
I'm so glad that y'all are coming to speak at the festival. Before you signed on, the second y'all announced on Twitter that you were starting OK Motion Club, all of the women in our studio were like, "Oh my gosh, this is amazing." We’ve just fallen in love with the work and with you guys.
Amanda Schrembeck:
Linda was randomly like, "I feel like we should make a Twitter account." It ended up blowing up, more than most of our other channels. We were like, "maybe we should use this more."
Meryn Hayes:
Yeah, yeah. It was awesome.
Cool. Well, I will start, and I'll ask this of both of you. How did each of you get into motion design? What was your journey? How did you end up meeting? Linda, do you want to go first?
Linda McNeil:
Yeah. So I went to school for graphic design. When I graduated, I got an internship, which turned into a freelance position. It included a little bit of motion graphics. While I was working at that studio, I learned a lot more about the industry and got into it from there. That was ten years ago.
Meryn Hayes:
It’s always hard to believe how time flies.
Linda McNeil:
I know.
Amanda Schrembeck:
When I was a kid, I would mess around in PowerPoint and make animations. I downloaded Flash before it was Adobe Animate, and would just mess around with stuff. I think that was my first toe-dip into seeing what the medium could do. Then I actually went to school for printmaking, and quickly realized when I graduated there were not a ton of printmaking jobs out in the world, surprise, surprise. But I still love it dearly. I eventually ended up going into graphic design.
Through that, I don't know...one day, I was like, "I think I want to learn After Effects." So I opened the program and pretty quickly closed it because it was terrifying. But that was when I was a junior designer. I had more time at my job to mess around and learn things. I had also met Linda a few years before that. She and my husband worked at Huge together. So I feel like Linda was also a pretty big source of inspiration for me because I knew that she taught herself and I felt like I could also teach myself. So it went from there. Honestly, just curiosity and online tutorials.
Meryn Hayes:
That's awesome. Also, total aside, I went to school for photography, but I took one printmaking class. It was so much fun. I really feel like with what we do every day, everything digital and on the computer, the complete reverse of that is really tactile. It must be a really good outlet because you get the balance of both.
Amanda Schrembeck:
Yeah. I do miss it a lot. When you spend all day on the computer you do really miss just drawing, and physically printing something. Both of us have hobbies outside of doing this, and we both still have a passion for fine arts. So any way we can try and incorporate it is ideal. If it's through merch, or just having an experimental craft day, that's something we want to get into.
Meryn Hayes:
That's awesome. So, y'all had met, what was the point that you were like, "alright, we're going to start this thing together?"
Amanda Schrembeck:
I actually looked back at our messages the other day, just to...I don't know. You know when there are paths in your life where you have to make a decision that is going to drastically change your life trajectory? I did not think when we sent those messages to each other on Instagram that that was going to be one of those life-changing moments.
We followed Panimation, and they have the same goals as we do; trying to empower women and non-binary people within the industry. To showcase their skills. I think we realized there was nothing like that in Atlanta.
Linda McNeil:
We also just wanted there to be a space for us to experiment outside of work. To do animation and motion graphics more for fun. So when we first started just doing all of the OK Motion Club stuff, we were bouncing ideas off of each other, reaching out to illustrators that were local for collaboration. It really was just for fun.
Amanda Schrembeck:
Yeah. I don't think we realized it was going to turn into what it did. Obviously, I think it was in the back of our minds that it would be awesome if it became something bigger. But deep down, we just wanted it to be a space for us to share work and encourage each other to push ourselves forward. We weren't getting that at our jobs. That's still what it is for us. We want to make sure that we're always enjoying what we do, and that was something neither of us was getting in our nine to five jobs.
Meryn Hayes:
How did you initially set up time and make space to start that while you had nine to five’s and busy lives? Was it hard to get the inertia to really get started? Starting a business and branding yourselves, that's a lot to take on in addition to other work that you're doing and a life that you have.
Amanda Schrembeck:
I feel like it wasn't bad for me starting out. I was so motivated to WANT to work on something else, something that I was passionate about. So, I was excited to come home and make these projects. Also, just seeing the community’s response to them, that's a motivator too. You want to keep it going. But as time went on and it started to become more serious, probably something that we'll talk about at the festival, we realized that it could become a full-time job.
That's when it started to get really unmanageable. It was like, “okay, we got to make a website, we got to finish branding. We have to do all of the unexciting business stuff on the side of setting up an LLC, and a lot of other unknowns.” At that point, it felt like two full-time jobs. But we’re over that hump now.
Meryn Hayes:
Then what about the climate in Atlanta? Y'all said that there wasn't really a studio like this in the area. Is there a big animation, illustration, or general art presence? What's the scene there now? Did you immediately notice there was a space that needed to be filled?
Linda McNeil:
Yeah. There is a meetup in Atlanta called Ease ATL, which was a space for freelancers to get together pre-pandemic. Now it's a Slack channel, but they are about to start having talks again. We're actually doing one with them in September. But the space, there is also a studio called Awesome Inc. that is women run. It's an animation studio, but they do more classic cel frame animation. Work that you would see on Cartoon Network or Adult Swim. There really isn't a space for what we were looking to do, specifically for social content. Like a lot of the Instagram posts that we do, or any of the videos that we've posted. We really gear towards social.
Amanda Schrembeck:
Having worked at agencies, I think we have a pretty good understanding of what a lot of brands are looking for. Quick turn content and eye-catching stuff, which is what we consider as our bread and butter. There will always be a market for that in most cities, but Atlanta is growing as a city as well. It seems like it hasn't been slowing down the past year.
Meryn Hayes:
Yeah, something that we've noticed as well. We're in Raleigh, definitely smaller than Atlanta, not really a traditional place to be, like New York or LA. But, we've noticed which is being propelled further by the pandemic are these mid-market cities. Being a city in the south, it's not like we are traditionally well known for this type of work, it’s really come up in the past few years. Now, clients don't seem to care that you're not in New York or LA, and especially with Zoom, we can communicate anywhere. We can make art anywhere for anyone.
Amanda Schrembeck:
For sure. It's something good for small brands and freelancers that are trying to work with clients in bigger cities. Clients they never would have gotten the opportunity to work with because of where they’re located.
Meryn Hayes:
And it's contributing to the city itself, too. You're supporting the artists and the freelancers that are there while helping to propel the art and community further.
So it was a conscious decision when you started the studio to focus on short-form social content, is that right?
Amanda Schrembeck:
I don't know if we specifically laid it out as, “this is what we're only going to do.” It's just, I don't want to say easier, because we do really intentionally think about the short-form content as much as we do long-form. But it's kind of nice to have smaller goals of, "I'm just going to work on this 15-second animation," then we can move onto another project. You have so many ideas, it's nice to not be tied up for a month working on a single long-form project. That's why I prefer it. We also are working on longer-form stuff that taps into a different area of your creativity and things that we want to do. There is a need for both, and we enjoy both, but we tend to do short form the most.
Linda McNeil:
Yeah, I do feel there is more area for creativity with short-form content. Especially because it's a bit more...the timelines aren't that great, so you do have to be creative with how you approach everything. You can't think of it as, "okay, I have these five weeks to work on this Instagram post." It's like, no, you have a week. What can you do in a week? It's like a shotgun challenge, which is really fun sometimes.
Meryn Hayes:
You're totally right, we work on all kinds of stuff, long and short-form. But some of the projects, no matter how long they are, clients will drag their feet. Sometimes it will take months. So the idea of timeboxing for your sanity is great.
Amanda Schrembeck:
It's a nice check box sometimes, but I do agree with what Linda said about creativity. We like to experiment a lot with new methods, or textures, whatever it is. It's so easy to do that with a short-form animation. We find that even doing weird stuff like that on our Instagram feed attracts clients. They'll message us and be like, "Oh, I saw this post that you did." Usually, it’s just a random, one-off idea that we had. We're able to get work from it because people are liking the things that we're messing around with. It can pay off to experiment with short projects.
Meryn Hayes:
I was going to ask y'all how you found your initial client base when getting started. Were there referrals? Or were people randomly dming you like that?
Linda McNeil:
We both had clients that we brought into the business. Once we did announce, we got a lot of responses, which is great. It's better than launching, and everyone is like, "great job," and you don't get it from anybody.
Amanda Schrembeck:
Definitely a lot of referrals from friends at past jobs as well. Most people know that networking and staying in touch with contacts go a long, long way. We still have the potential to work with the companies that both of us worked at as well. We still have good relationships there. I think we're just kind of navigating through all of the referrals and people who have recently contacted us. At some point, we'll probably start making a list of dream brands that we want to work with and figure out how we can get in contact with them.
Meryn Hayes:
That was another question I had. Is there a...maybe it's not a dream brand, but a dream project type or style? Is there something that y'all are really hoping to work on?
Linda McNeil:
I did some work for Vans. That was kind of a dream client scenario. They were awesome to work with. Another dream would be to work with any outdoor brand, like Patagonia or REI. Just because there is so much you can do with that.
Amanda Schrembeck:
Yeah, we keep throwing out that we really want to do a music video. But then we also realize that could be a four or five-minute-long video. I think we just really like the idea of animating to music, also I feel like most music videos are such an open playground for creativity. Bands let you interpret the music how you want. So I think that's an area that we would like to explore at some point. It just has to be the right fit, and of course, the right budget, because that's unfortunately the hardest part with a lot of musicians. They usually don't have a big budget for a project like that.
Meryn Hayes:
That's awesome. We're just starting to work with a client, they’re a corporate client in tech, and we're doing a narrative piece that turns into a music video. So it's funny that you mention that. Whenever we're done with it, depending on how it turns out, I'll share it with y'all.
Amanda Schrembeck:
Okay!
But yeah, it was one of those things that our team had been talking about. They always wanted to do a music video. It was just a weird opportunity that a corporate client would present us with this option. Right now, it's really stressful because we're trying to figure out how to shoot it, and we don't have any time. Given, we're also throwing a festival in whatever it is...six weeks? Eight weeks? But that's awesome.
Like you said, going back to combining passions of print or traditional design, incorporating music as a part of the work is so important and influential as well. Earlier when you were talking about new styles or trying new inspiration for something, where do y'all feel like you typically get your inspiration or references from?
Amanda Schrembeck:
Probably like most people, social media, or just hanging out with friends. Honestly, I personally like to surround myself with other talented people. Our friend group is so incredible. They tend to inspire me the most. You see them do something, and you're like, "oh, I would love to collaborate with them, or talk with them about something." It's important to not always pull from social media. Get some real-life experiences as well.
Meryn Hayes:
Then what about the name? Where did the name come from?
Amanda Schrembeck:
I was thinking this might be kind of funny to show at the conference, but I'm pretty certain that I was in Augusta. It was Christmas. Linda and I had already been talking about forming this group, but we didn't have a name for it. I was talking to my husband and I said, "what do you think about the name OK Motion Club?" It's like a collective, which is what we were going for. We were thinking that maybe we could add more members to it at some point. We're also not denying that we're not the most incredible animators yet. We still have room to grow. Don’t get me wrong, we think we're good, but there are also other amazingly talented people out there. He was like, "yeah, I think it's cool." I texted it to Linda and she had a very similar response.
Linda McNeil:
Yeah. Our original bio said something along the lines of, "we're pretty okay at animation." Which is like...
Amanda Schrembeck:
...I think underselling ourselves a bit. But we're just being sarcastic.
Linda McNeil:
Yeah. It's also interesting that the name dives into Imposter Syndrome and how people do describe their work. Most people don't say, "yeah, this was the coolest, I'm the best at what I do." Everyone is really humble when they talk about their work, which I think women do a lot, too. Just underselling our worth.
Amanda Schrembeck:
I feel like the name alone does create a little buzz. We have heard people talk about us without knowing who we are. Just really recognizing the brand name now, which is crazy. It's weird for it to be spreading like that. So I think all of that was intentionality around the name, and even the branding itself; the little okay smiley, things like that that we want to become recognizable. At least in Atlanta, but obviously hoping that it spreads further.
Meryn Hayes:
Yeah, that's great. That was one of the things that our team had talked about. The vibe of the studio is so great. And the branding. What was that process like? Did it come naturally as y'all were starting out?
Amanda Schrembeck:
Yeah. I took a crack at the branding because I have a background as a designer. So I sent stuff to Linda, and if she liked it we rolled with it. We still want it to be collaborative though. I want her to say if she has preferences about things. But at first, we went with more of a black letter typeface. We’re both really into skate culture, that's probably another dream project focus. Skate videos or something like that. But we moved away from that. I think pink is just an iconic, feminine color. But at the same time, we still wanted it to come across as not just two typical women. We’re both sarcastic, and kind of edgy, I guess? That sounds weird to say. Tomboy-ish? Something in that vein?
Linda McNeil:
We're not going to call each other girl boss or anything like that.
Amanda Schrembeck:
We wanted it to be a mix of both of those things. More gender-neutral, I guess.
Meryn Hayes:
Yeah, that's funny. Just having just met y'all, the aesthetic and vibe of the website and your branding do match very well.
Amanda Schrembeck:
Thanks.
Meryn Hayes:
We started talking about Imposter Syndrome. Getting into that a little bit more, how have y'all handled that? Sometimes I think to myself, "why does anyone give a shit about what I think?" How have y'all handled that in the past?
Linda McNeil:
Sometimes saying what you are thinking out loud helps. A lot of times, honestly, in our Slack channel, there is a lot of back and forth of me telling Amanda, "I don't know, I think this sucks, I don't think they're going to like this." She's just like, "I think this is awesome." Just vocalizing what your Imposter Syndrome brain is trying to tell you helps. Even when we were starting this, there was a lot of fear that led to the Imposter Syndrome. It's crazy that after 10 years of experience, I'm still like, "I don't know what I'm doing."
Amanda Schrembeck:
Because both of us left jobs that we were at for five years, you really feel like you can navigate that environment with your eyes closed. But then you think, "what if I leave here and suddenly I don't know how to work with other people in the industry? Maybe I only knew that environment really well.” I think that motivates me to want to try harder. To make sure I can prove myself wrong. To prove to these people that I can deliver on something.
The first freelance job I did after quitting my agency job sent me a message after it was done. They said something like, "oh, you've been so wonderful to work with. You've been awesome, and on top of it." Just a message like that is super reassuring that you did a good job, and it makes you want to keep going. Also, another one of the freelancers who, I think he thought I worked there, said, "you seem like you're the only one who knows what you're doing." That made me feel good.
Meryn Hayes:
Getting that feedback or validation is great.
Amanda Schrembeck:
That's really what it is. It’s just getting validation. It’s crazy that you can live in your own little bubble for a while, and be like, "do I actually know what I'm doing? Or am I good at this?" You are. You probably are.
Meryn Hayes:
Yeah. Linda, what you were saying. Saying the imposter feeling out loud. I don't think I've ever felt more like an imposter than when I became a mother. I think it's because nobody ever talked about how hard it was, right? So if you don't see that, you feel like it's just you. That you're the only person going through that hard time. So one of my goals as a working mother has been to talk about it so that when other people experience it, they don't feel the same isolation.
It's the same thing. If you talk about it, someone might see you're running this great studio, and you still question whether you're good enough, or if a client is going to like your work. Having other people see that vulnerability helps them, in turn, to be more able to handle their own Imposter Syndrome.
Linda McNeil:
Totally. I think the thing that leads to the imposter syndrome is your doubt and fear of the unknown. Of not knowing what the reaction will be. Just accepting that any reaction is fine and that you'll get through it. There are so many business owners that I've talked to since we've started this that have gone through the worst. They've told us, "Once you go through the worst, you realize it's not that bad."
Meryn Hayes:
The other thing is, at some point, you realize that nobody knows what they're doing. It looks like they do, that also makes you feel like we're all just struggling together.
Linda McNeil:
Yeah, totally.
Meryn Hayes:
What about advice? This one was from one of our interns, she is graduating from SCAD next year. What would be a piece of advice you would give to young, female designers?
Amanda Schrembeck:
Are they an animator or designer? I mean, I guess it doesn't...
Meryn Hayes:
...She's a designer now. She does dabble in animation though and wants to get more into it.
Amanda Schrembeck:
What I learned the most was that unless you have a ton of amazing connections in the world with people that you've met in school, nobody is going to hand you a job. You have to work your ass off. I made a lot of fake projects to fill my portfolio with to show people I knew what I was doing. I knew that I knew what I was doing, but companies didn't. They needed something to go off of. It's true for animators too. Even if your reel looks a little slim, ask yourself, “what's missing? Do I have an explainer-type video? Do I have social content?”Just make up fake stuff. I think that almost goes further because it shows that you have the drive and motivation to want to do something on your own. You're not waiting for a project to fall in your lap.
The beginning is tough. You're trying to fill in all these gaps, it can be daunting and a lot all at once. Make a website, and market yourself, which feels kind of gross. You want people to recognize that you're good. Unfortunately, you have to put yourself out there, and really just make yourself look the way you want for companies. You also have to make sure that you're changing your stuff for different companies so that the company you're applying for feels like you genuinely are only looking at them. It's another unfortunate step that you have to take, but it goes a long way.
Meryn Hayes:
That's great. What about you, Linda?
Linda McNeil:
I agree with what Amanda was saying; putting out work that you want to do, making sure that your portfolio reflects the work that you want to be working on. There have been a few times where I've talked to recent grads that only have their school projects in their portfolio or on their site. It would include something that they're not super excited about. Don't put something on your site if you don't want to work on it. If you're not into UI animation, don't put it on your site. Also, take the first few years out of college to absorb as much as you can. You don't know what direction you're really going into until you start learning. I originally thought I wanted to go into packaging design when I graduated college.
Meryn Hayes:
That's something we talk with a lot of different people about on Clubhouse, or in doing these interviews. Something that’s so important that I've noticed when speaking to others in the industry is that when you get out of school, you have this idea of what you want to do. But in those early days, it's almost more important to figure out what you don't want to do. Very few people's paths are straight. A lot wind their way to where they are today.
I went to school for photography and realized I didn't want to move to New York City to become a freelance photographer like all my classmates. I had to completely pivot. Sometimes people think they're failures, or maybe they took a job and didn't like it. It's not a failure. It's just you pivoting your path in a different direction to help find what you want to do. That’s something that’s not talked about enough. It's not necessarily a failure, it’s finding your way to something you do want to do.
Amanda Schrembeck:
Yeah, I worked a couple of jobs right out of school that weren’t even related to the art industry. I was depressed for a while because I felt like I had just graduated and I was suddenly going to be in the career that I wanted to be in. But I used that as a motivator. “I have to get out of this. I have to do something because clearly just having a degree and a couple of school projects is not enough to get attention.” So it's the process of realizing, “okay, I need to change something.”
Meryn Hayes:
Yeah, that’s great.
One thing one of our illustrators noticed on y'all's website was you mentioned posting talks and workshops through initiatives like Ladies Wine and Design. Can y'all talk more about that?
Amanda Schrembeck:
We've actually done a few talks. I think the first one we did was with MODA.
Linda McNeil:
Yeah.
Amanda Schrembeck:
Or was there one before that? There may have been one before that, but Ladies Wine and Design is a chapter in Atlanta. There are multiple ones. A friend reached out for us to host a workshop for that. It ended up being over Zoom, because it was during the pandemic. She told us that it was the most people that had joined one of the talks. It was nice to be able to teach someone something, and also knowing that we were empowering other women and people within the industry.
We want to keep doing talks like that, and workshops, but it's hard to find time now for stuff like that when we're also trying to generate an income. People will still message us on Instagram even just for referrals of where we learned things. So if there’s any way we can share information of how we got started, those are amazing places to do it.
Meryn Hayes:
Do y'all feel like the questions that people have, or the topics that y'all hear about, have some common themes? Are people more interested in literally the work that y'all are doing, and workshopping how you make something? Or maybe how to start a studio? The business side? Or more of a smattering…?
Amanda Schrembeck:
All of it.
Meryn Hayes:
All of it?
Amanda Schrembeck:
Yeah.
Linda McNeil:
It’s definitely a mix of people in the classes. There are people who are like, "I've literally never touched animation ever. How does this even work?" So I think people are just curious about how we start on something. It's a difficult thing to try and put together because, in our heads, we've been doing this for so long. So it's asking ourselves how we distill it down for someone who has never even opened an animation program before. That can be fun to try and think about how to make it easy for someone to digest. Then we also get questions about who we are, and why we got started. Some might be considering going off on their own someday. It's a little bit of everything.
Meryn Hayes:
On that note, what type of advice would you have to other women or non-binary folks who are either taking the leap to go freelance or taking the leap to start a studio in such a straight, white, male-dominated field? Any advice on something that y'all have learned, or advice to other people as they are moving in that direction?
Linda McNeil:
The best advice is to reach out to people. Even if it's somebody that you think is only interested in illustration, or even a photographer, someone you can get creative jam time with. Honestly, when Amanda and I first met up, I wasn't even really aware she was animating. You learn so much from somebody that is also thinking the same creative thoughts you are. Having that space and awareness too, where it's outside of the white male perspective...
Amanda Schrembeck:
I would probably just say just put yourself out there. I have friends that, on Instagram, they're like, "Well, I make art. But I don't really share it." If you're serious about it, and you want people to take it seriously, you should make a separate account for it. That way you know when people follow you there or engage with you, the art is what they're there for. That was another big driver for us to start OK Motion Club. I felt like when I posted art, people didn't care about it.
Amanda Schrembeck:
I just wanted people to take it seriously. To realize that this was a real thing that I was doing. I found that it helped us a lot to separate the two. Putting yourself out there can be scary, but it can also give you validation of if what you're doing is the right thing to do.
Meryn Hayes:
Then what about advice or, I guess it's less advice, and more like what y'all's wishes would be. We've made a lot of headway in being more inclusive as an industry, it is still dominantly male, but we're making strides, especially with groups like Panimation. How do we continue that? How do we work to be more inclusive moving forward?
Amanda Schrembeck:
It sucks that we have to create these communities to showcase people's work that isn't white male. But yeah, people are having to do that to be able to shine a light on other individuals. It's on more popular platforms that white, cis, male-type work is typically being showcased. Making sure that it's a more equal mix, doing the research, and looking into people.
Panimation even had to do that as well. They weren't featuring People of Color for a really long time. It's easy to be like, "Well, there aren’t as many people online, or we can't find them." Well, look harder, or ask people, I don't know, put out a call for artists. Ask them to submit to you. I think there are other ways around it. You can't make an excuse for it.
Linda McNeil:
Yeah. There are ways to justify that kind of thinking, too, where it's like, "Well, we put it on Motionographer. No women or People of Color applied." That's not doing the work of just putting it all out there.
Amanda Schrembeck:
Are they able to find your call out?
Linda McNeil:
Really thinking along the lines of your work gets better when it's more diverse. All work gets better if it's coming from multiple viewpoints and multiple backgrounds. So, it's on all studios. Eventually, Amanda and I will have to hire, and we're aware we're two white women. So when we are hiring, we have to consider how we diversify that. I do want to mention, even when we were starting our website, we did kind of struggle with putting out us as a female animation studio, putting the name female in there. We were like, "Well, we don't really want to have to be known as an all female…”
Linda McNeil:
We don't want to identify, because, in a perfect world, we'd just be an animation studio. But we are different from most studios because we are two women.
Amanda Schrembeck:
It makes you feel a little icky. I mean, I'm proud of it. I'm definitely incredibly proud of us, but I also want people to come to us because they know we're talented and we're good at what we do. Not because they're like, "Oh, did you hear about the two women with an animation studio?" It's a strange thing to navigate. As long as we stay true to who we are, and make sure that the type of people we're working with genuinely recognize our talents, then it's someone that we'll want to start a relationship with.
Meryn Hayes:
That's really interesting. I totally get that. We shouldn't have to define ourselves. It shouldn't be a big deal, but it is because there aren't any female-owned and operated studios. My hope would be in the next few years that that's not what you're defined by, it's just the work that defines you.
Linda McNeil:
I will say the response hasn't been like, "Wow, look at these girls doing cool stuff." It's really like, "Look at this awesome studio." It's still a battle, but I do see that there has been change. There aren’t a lot of people reaching out like, "what's up, ladies?"
Meryn Hayes:
Just delete that email if you ever get it.
Let's see. What about anything, and maybe this is a boring business question, but has anything surprised you on the business end of starting the studio? Mack and Cory, dash’s co-founders, talk a lot about how they were animators, they weren't business owners. How did y'all navigate early on? Did you have help?.
Amanda Schrembeck:
We've had all of the help. But I also feel like the advice goes in one ear and out the other sometimes because it’s so much. My husband has started a couple of businesses, so he's definitely gone through it a few times. He tells me, he could literally sit me down and explain everything, and I'm just like, “I know that we need to know it, but I don't want to know it. It's not the fun part. I just want to be making things.” But it's fine, it definitely helps to have friends that have gone through it before or previous coworkers. You can pick their brain, which is incredibly helpful. But it's also tough. They don't really make it easy for you to try and figure out how to do it. Nobody can tell you how to do it the right way.
Linda McNeil:
Yeah. It's not how my brain usually works. The times we've met up to go over business stuff, I feel like I'd leave Amanda's house exhausted, because I’m just like, "Oh my god, why do I feel like I'm falling asleep?" We'd be talking for two hours about setting up the business. It's made me appreciate accountants and producers much more.
Amanda Schrembeck:
The most reassuring thing is when they say, "you can change this later on”, or, “you can figure this out later.” The most important thing is obviously bringing money into the business so sometimes we’ll circle back. We have quarterly calls with our tax guy now, where we're just like, "Please tell us that we're not..."
Linda McNeil:
“...That we're not going to get arrested.”
Amanda Schrembeck:
Yeah, getting arrested, or being criminals.
Meryn Hayes:
That's something that we have talked a lot about. You've got to think that during art school or programs that teach art, at some point, you're going to be doing something that you might need a little bit of that business background, right? If you're going freelance or starting a studio, you'll need to know that side. That’s just something that I think everyone who starts within this industry is just like, "Oh, shit, I don't know what I'm doing."
Amanda Schrembeck:
They really should make a business class specifically for artists.
Meryn Hayes:
You would think. We can make a lot of money if we went in on that because it is a huge need. But, to y'all's point, the community, and asking for help, everyone has had to figure it out. It's all about sharing the experience of, "Here is our scope. This might work for you." That common knowledge is awesome.
Cool. Well, I had one more question. Looking ahead, is there a goal that OK Motion Club is going to have X number of people, or going to be in a different city? Have y'all had any goals when you had started initially? Or is it more like, "We're just going to do this and see what happens?"
Amanda Schrembeck:
People keep asking us that, and I think we're just trying to figure out how to run this group with the two of us. We both are maybe scared, the bigger you get, the harder it is to control or make sure it has our seal of approval on everything.
Linda McNeil:
Yeah, we don't want to lose any of the integrity or the vibe of the company.
Amanda Schrembeck:
I don't know. It's our baby. How do you just give that away to other people? If we were to grow, I think it is inevitable at some point for us to eventually hire a few people. But I personally don't have a desire for it to become a massive company. At that point, it would completely change the culture from what we would want.
Linda McNeil:
Our goal right now is to have a studio space. Eventually, we would like to host events or little art shows. Just to have more of a space for people to meet up.
Amanda Schrembeck:
Yeah.
Meryn Hayes:
That's great.
Amanda Schrembeck:
It is cool, though, to be able to bring on other people that have similar backgrounds to us. People that fell into animation, and it became a passion for them. To be able to offer someone an awesome career like that, it’s an amazing thought. I hope that someday we can offer that to a few people, but it will be a very long, thought-out decision. It won't be easily made.
Meryn Hayes:
That stuff, for the most part, doesn't happen overnight. Well, speaking of meeting up, I am so excited to meet y'all in September and to hear more of your story and thoughts. Thanks for chatting with me today. This has been great. We'll talk soon.
Amanda Schrembeck and Linda McNeil:
Yeah, you too!
Takeover Tuesday with Marcelo Meijome
Q&A with Marcelo Meijome, a 3D and Motion Artist currently working at Varjo in Helsinki as a Senior Visual Designer.
Q&A with Marcelo Meijome
Read time: 5min
Madison Caprara:
Hi, Marcelo! I’m excited to get to know you a little better. Could you give us a brief introduction to yourself and your work? How would you describe your style for the readers?
Marcelo Meijome:
Hello Madison! I’m a Visual and Motion Designer, currently based in Helsinki, Finland. Actually, soon to be based in Milan, Italy. I was born in the U.S. to an American mother and an Argentine father. Growing up, we moved around a lot, back and forth between the U.S. and Argentina. I guess that carried over as an adult and I find myself moving around with my wife every couple of years it seems!
My work and style have evolved quite a bit over time I think, and I try to experiment with everything from super-stylized work to realistic 3D art. One constant though has been the focus on motion and animation in my work. These days, I find myself making short animations with inanimate objects, such as chairs, and giving them some personality and life. There is something really satisfying about creating a clean, seamless looping animation.
Madison Caprara:
A bit of a nomad I see! Well, let’s get started. Who or what nurtured your initial creative spark? Did you have any early mentors?
Marcelo Meijome:
I would say my parents played a big part in nurturing my creative spark. They always encouraged me to draw growing up, they let me play a lot of video games, and we would watch a lot of animated movies together. It’s because of these things that I think I knew I wanted to somehow do something related to art and design.
An early mentor for me would be my college professor, Dan Baldwin. He had gotten his Master’s degree at SCAD and has so much great experience when it comes to design and illustration. He really helped to make my work better and to also do a lot of projects outside of the classroom which better prepared me for the agency/studio world after graduating.
Madison Caprara:
It’s always great when you have that initial support from your family. I imagine it makes it easier to go after the career you want. What has been your career path leading up to the present?
Marcelo Meijome:
Originally, I started in the Fine Arts program at Indiana University, but after a year I transferred to IUPUI in Indianapolis to pursue a program more focused on design and computer graphics. After graduating, I felt like I wanted to learn more about animation specifically, so I enrolled in Animation Mentor. While doing these online animation courses, I started working at a local Indianapolis creative agency called Vision Three. This is where I started to really develop a lot of my 3D and motion design skills. Over time, the work there transitioned to be heavily based on real-time interactive applications and virtual reality projects. That’s what led me to being contacted by Varjo in Helsinki to help design for their VR and Mixed Reality headsets. Besides the full-time work, I’ve also taken on a variety of freelance projects on the side when some fun or interesting opportunities pop up.
Madison Caprara:
So, what is it you exactly do for Varjo? Break it down for us!
Marcelo Meijome:
My role at Varjo has been that of a Senior Visual Designer. In practice, that means I help out with a wide range of design challenges and tasks, a bit of everything from UI design, to illustration, to virtual environment creation in Unreal, to motion design for interactive elements, to even functionality prototyping. This role has really given me a chance to improve on some of my core design and motion skills, but also learning and exploring more technical aspects like coding to make early-stage design prototypes. One of the challenges with designing for virtual or mixed reality is that there are no tools like Adobe Xd or Figma just yet to quickly prototype things, so there is a high learning curve for designers to learn something like Unity or Unreal to be able to create and validate their designs in VR. Hopefully, this barrier improves, but at least there are already some concepting tools in VR like Oculus Quill, Microsoft Maquette, and Gravity Sketch that can help with part of the process.
Madison Caprara:
Who has been one of your favorite clients to work with? This can include one you’ve linked up with during your time at Varjo, or even during personal work!
Marcelo Meijome:
I really enjoyed working on a project for Morton Salt. It was for a big interactive video wall at their HQ office in Chicago that was run on three Microsoft Kinect sensors doing full-body tracking. This combined a good amount of UI motion design work, but also creating motion and design for when the application was not in use, so when people would walk by the screens we could create interesting transitions and motion design that would follow the user around. Morton Salt surprisingly gave us pretty free reign when it came to some of this as long as we stayed on the brand colors, so I think we were able to come up with something really cool in the end. This is something I’d like to experiment with some more in something like a museum setting.
Madison Caprara:
That sounds absolutely wild! I didn’t know they were based in Chicago.
As a self-labeled “generalist,” what are your thoughts on the generalist vs specialist debate?
Marcelo Meijome:
I think there is definitely room for both, and they each have their own benefits. From my experience, it helps to try and specialize in a few related things. For example, a lot of motion design positions now require 3d experience. You don’t need to be an expert in the whole 3d software package, but it does require knowledge of many areas like animation, lighting, and rendering. It’s always good to keep an open mind and continually be learning new things, you never know when it might come in handy. This is especially true in smaller studios where you don’t have huge teams with lots of specialists.
Madison Caprara:
Sound like your preference definitely leans towards being a jack of all trades.
In your opinion, what are some things that the art and design world is too focused on, and on the flip side, what are we not focused on enough?
Marcelo Meijome:
It feels like there’s a big focus these days on social media when it comes to art and design. Don’t get me wrong, there are definitely benefits to this, easier to get exposure, share work, get your art seen by a huge amount of people. At the same time, this makes it feel like there’s a constant pressure as an artist that you need to share your work online and promote yourself which can be super draining and leave you burnt out. Like with anything else, it’s about balance and using the tool for your benefit but not letting it control what you do or what kind of work you make.
On the flip side, I would say traditional design and art skills have lost some focus. Everything needs to be more instant these days, so people expect to learn some software quickly and then the great work will follow automatically. I think the understanding of design principles, shapes, color, form, etc are way more important in the end, and learning the software or tool is more secondary to that.
Madison Caprara:
You’re right, social media has its dark side, but it can also be crazy inspiring. I love the connections you can make with people and places all across the world. Where do you go for inspiration when the creative rut hits?
Marcelo Meijome:
The usual social channels of Twitter, Instagram, Dribbble, Behance, and Motionographer can be a good way to find inspiration and spark new ideas, lots of great work to be discovered. Besides that, I find a lot of inspiration from just going out and doing things, whether it’s taking a walk, going to a museum, or traveling, you’re bound to see inspiring things in architecture and nature. I usually get a new idea for a personal project when I’m doing something completely random!
Madison Caprara:
Speaking of random, what’s a skill you never anticipated needing within your career but have found you can’t work without?
Marcelo Meijome:
Organization skills have become crucial for me, and this applies to pretty much all areas of my work. In school, I thought I could just make cool things and then the final deliverable was all I needed, but I quickly realized how important it was to stay organized once I started working professionally; the organization of my files, being able to find things I need quickly, and archiving work that’s been done. Keeping my working files clean and tidy, naming all my layers, grouping things accordingly, color coding things. These are all especially important when working on projects with other artists. I try to hand off projects and assets in the way I would like to get them from others. The worst thing is getting a messy project or file that has things scattered all over.
Madison Caprara:
For curiosity’s sake, do you have any off-the-wall side hustles or hidden talents?
Marcelo Meijome:
I don’t really have any side hustles or hidden talents. I like to play soccer but haven’t found a way to get paid for that yet! I like to learn about history and lots of different topics, so maybe I know a lot of random facts or bits of info that occasionally come in handy!
Madison Caprara:
Is there anything special we can look forward to seeing from you?
Marcelo Meijome:
My dad passed away suddenly back in June this year, so I’ve taken a bit of a break from working on much personal stuff since that happened. I’ve been thinking and reflecting a lot about my dad during that time, what he meant to me and my family and our connection to Argentina. Hopefully, soon, I would like to create something as a tribute for him. He always supported me no matter what I wanted to do, and really pushed me to continue working on my art during the times that I wanted to quit and study something else. Besides this, I want to get back to making more weekly art posts and collaborate on projects with my wife where she will create music tracks and I’ll make an animation to go along with them.
Madison Caprara:
Oh man, Marcelo. I’m truly sorry to hear about your father’s passing. My condolences to you and your family. If you plan on sharing your memorial project with the public, I’d love to see it.
We’re reaching the end of our time. Do you have any closing advice or maybe a statement you would like to share?
Marcelo Meijome:
Try to set aside some time for personal projects when possible. I know it’s not always easy to find the time or motivation to do these, I struggled for a long time with this too, starting lots of things but never finishing them. Start with small and short goals and try not to focus too much on making things perfect. Experiment with different styles and techniques! Almost all the freelance work I’ve ever gotten came as a result of someone seeing some of my more fun personal work. Just be careful to maintain a good balance with your personal life as well, it’s also ok to take breaks and not always feel like you have to be working.