Who are you and what is your role at Fox&Co?
My name is Callum and I am a motion designer at Fox&Co.
Why did you decide to become a motion designer?
At university, I did a Bachelor of Design Innovation. It was a pretty broad range of design, from website and graphic design to video editing to motion design. The projects I enjoyed most involved 2D and 3D animation, visual effects and so on. So I discovered motion design while studying and went with that.
How did you end up working at Fox&Co?
I actually went to the Motion Design Meetup last year, which was my final year at uni. I didn’t know all that much about motion graphics yet. I just heard of this design Meetup and thought I should go. I was coming to the end of my degree and thought I it would be good to meet some people in the industry. So I just went and I met Phyo (the Fox) there. Turned out he ran the Motion Design Meetup! We met up a few times and then I got an internship over the summer. And here I am!
What are you most excited to achieve at Fox&Co?
Probably to work on a client project just by myself. At the moment, I’m helping everyone out with projects, or I start a project that then someone else finishes because I don’t have the skills yet to do it myself. So the goal, for now, would be to do a whole project, the full circle by myself.
Where do you look for inspiration?
For motion design specifically, I go to Motionographer.com, and for design related things more generally, I usually just scroll through my Pinterest feed. I’m following a bunch of motion design and 2D, 3D animation topics, so it’s good to gain inspiration from.
What was the coolest project you’ve ever worked on?
I think the most exciting project was making the animals for the Fox&Co website. I did all the texturing, the lighting and rendering; and I think what made it exciting was that I’ve never really been good at that side of 3D design. Developing the project from scratch to the standard that it is now was really exciting.
What does a typical day at Fox&Co look like for you?
Usually, I start looking up design inspirations or work a little bit on my personal projects for the first half an hour. After that, I do some Fox&Co work, like the website or branding. And then throughout the day, I just do a bit of client work as well, if people need help on things or I’ve got something to do myself. I pretty much just break it up into a bit of Fox&Co and client work.
What are the ups and downs of working as a motion designer?
Personally, I like the aspect of staying late and having pressing deadlines and projects to do, and getting really stuck into work. That’s what I enjoy about it – especially around here because I’m learning SO much. I really like that about design, there’s just so much out there, so there are always more things to learn.
And the downs… Well, motion design is made up of graphic design mixed with animation, which has heaps of aspects, like lighting, rendering, the animation itself and so on. And I think the downside is trying to learn everything to a high level. You need years and years of experience to do it. You have to learn heaps of roles that are usually split up in companies. I think that’s probably the hardest bit about it.
What does make working at Fox&Co special?
I think what makes Fox&Co special is that we’re a tight group of people. That’s really what intrigued me at first. Originally, there were only three of us. And I thought that was great because I got to work really close to people with lots of experience. This is what makes it unique – learning different skills from each other.
If you were an animated character who would you be and why?
I think I’d be One-Punch Man. He’s an anime character. He’s awesome.