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.
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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.
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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!