Video and audio transcripts

Video transcript

Hi, my name is Toby Grime, I work at Animal Logic ? this is a part of it. I am a designer here and I work on film and TV projects, and TVC and anything else that comes in the door.

Coming up with something new, starting with just an idea in your head and then seeing it go on TV or in a film all around the world and seeing it work, I think that?s the best thing. So just knowing that you can just have a really vague idea and then maybe after a few months it ends up on a screen somewhere in a cinema or on a TV, cable TV somewhere. I think that?s really exciting.

I relate a lot of that back to photography, obviously everyone is using digital cameras these days, but I always had a medium format camera, I got really excited taking a photo, processing a negative and seeing the print come out for the first time. Cause you don?t know what?s on that negative until you go through that whole process. And that?s still what I find quite exciting. Motion graphics is kind of the same thing. You have the idea which is like taking the shot and then you have to try and build it. I find that whole process exciting, the exploration of an idea.

I like anything visual, and I like the creative medium and design gives me a commercial face to a creative world without being someone who just stays at home and paints all day and has no money. It gives me a job first and foremost but also gives me an opportunity to work with some really exciting people. So this could be anything from a cool cable TV client who wants a new identity right up to, working with ? I just came off the back of a big film project working with a very famous film director who has done lots of crazy films. It?s really fun to meet those people first hand and share ideas with them. I guess collaboratively working with cool people is a good thing in design, I think.

Audio transcripts

Toby talks about how he first got interested in design by looking at record covers.

At the start of high school when I started looking at collecting records there was a record label that I really liked called 4AD from London that just had beautiful design work. This would have been in year 7 or something when I was listening to Cocteau Twins and This Mortal Coil, which were a bit alternative back then but are a bit soft and mushy nowadays I find. But I really liked their design work. So in the early high school days I was looking at these record covers and actually buying record covers because they looked good, and I would listen to the music as a secondary interest. Obviously if it sounded good it was even better. I guess at the start of high school I started to get an idea that I liked the look of this, I didn't know why but it just looked good and that was good enough for me.

Toby started designing by working for himself until he had enough experience to get a job.

I became a designer cause I started just doing some work for myself through necessity for a record label I started with a friend. I had to do the little labels for the vinyl and covers and stuff. I just taught myself ? at first it was cut and paste and photocopies and very low tech. Then I ended up getting a PC, just a cheap PC and did it myself. That's how I sort of fell into it.

Toby says that what he does each day depends on what part of a project he is working on.

Some days I'll just be doing research and design (R&D) ? looking at nice images to get some reference material, I might be gathering references for a week for a job, so it might just be research, hanging out in the library really. On other days I might just be sitting in Photoshop coming up with ideas. Other days I might be in Flame for a week. I might be there all day, sitting with someone, compositing or I might be sitting in After Effects . It depends on what part of a job I'm in will determine what I do during that day. There's no real fixed way that a day flows. It's purely based on where you are in a job and you structure it yourself really. There's no-one here to tell you what to do really.

Toby talks about how he uses communication skills to convey his creative ideas.

It's not just sitting on a computer in Photoshop and bashing out a pretty picture which a client might like. That's probably about half the job. The other part which I think is really important is communication, being able to talk to a client, convince them, sell them an idea, just to be able to converse. But also writing skills are absolutely crucial. One thing I am doing more of is what we call writing a treatment , which is sort of like a little narrative, a story using visually descriptive language to describe a motion graphic piece or some typography or an effect in the film. That is really the first way you sell an idea, you nail it down in your head to push it to a visual level. That all comes from writing, so if you can't get that right, then you just make life harder for yourself. Obviously just the command of the English language is probably the most important skill you could have really. If you can convey those ideas ? you don't have to be able to do those ideas visually ? but you can still direct a design team or whatever. It is very much a core thing, as well as being able to do the pictures.

Social skills are very important in Toby?s job as a designer.

You've got to be able to listen and take feedback, as you mentioned, from clients, from your peers, from your boss. And don't take it as a negative when someone says something sux. It's just that in their eyes it sux and in your eyes it looks great. But you've got to be able to assess what it is their seeing that makes it suck. I think that's just through experience?

But also being aware of feedback from clients and being able to incorporate all the feedback and criticisms that people come up with. But also to be able to criticise other peoples work and not being afraid to criticise other peoples work, I think that's really important. The worst thing you can do is just be safe with your design, you don't want to just keep it safe. It's ok to make something look horrible, offend people.

Toby needs to know about the computer software he uses, and the software his team mates use to direct them on a job.

I work on a computer as a primary thing, but I do some really basic sketches or doodles or write up treatments. But generally I am fluent in After Effects , Photoshop and Illustrator which is from Adobe software, which is a very standard package that you can have on a PC or Macintosh.

Problem solving happens in Toby?s job in many ways.

Every job that comes in is almost a problem, cause you have deadlines, schedules, technical R&D. You've got to work out how? you have an idea and have to work out how I'm going to do it now? How am I going to meet the deadline? How am I going to meet the budget? There's problem solving at multiple levels. But I guess you don't talk of it as a problem, it's just the job. But yeah, you are taking big problems and reducing them to come out with a nice product. So it is problem solving but on many levels.