066: How to get motion design clients using your personal work w/ Nick DenBoer AKA Smearballs
Motion Hatch: Helping Motion Designers Do Better Business
Release Date: 05/12/2020
101: How to niche down as a motion designer w/ Giuseppe Forestieri
Motion Hatch: Helping Motion Designers Do Better Business
Should you niche down as a designer? We’ve all heard this advice! So, does niching down help you to win more clients or empower you to be seen as an expert? In this podcast, Hayley speaks with one of our students, Giuseppe about how he niched down his animation studio to work on projects he loves. About Giuseppe Forestieri Giuseppe Forestieri is the Animation Director of his own studio, and has a background in visual communication, specialising in animation and Illustration. Motion Aptitude is the fusion of two of Giuseppe’s biggest passions in life: creativity, and the great outdoors....
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100: Lessons learnt from making 100 podcast episodes w/ Hayley Akins
Motion Hatch: Helping Motion Designers Do Better Business
Hayley Akins is a motion designer, animator and the founder of Motion Hatch. Hayley launched this podcast in November 2017! In this episode, Hayley explains how and why she started this motion design podcast and what she’s learnt along the way. She hopes these
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99: How to create motion design side projects that complement your day job w/ Charli Marie
Motion Hatch: Helping Motion Designers Do Better Business
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98: How Giant Ant became a leading motion design studio w/ Jay Grandin
Motion Hatch: Helping Motion Designers Do Better Business
Jay is Co-Founder of Giant Ant, an animation studio in Vancouver. As Creative Director, Jay oversees nearly every project in the studio—leading the concept development and script writing processes as well as being actively involved in design and animation. In this episode, Jay unpacks how Giant Ant became a leading motion design studio.
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097: How to make six figures as a motion designer w/ John Filipkowski
Motion Hatch: Helping Motion Designers Do Better Business
John Filipkowski is a freelance motion designer from Chicagoland, with over ten years of experience. He’s worked with some huge brands on projects such as Dr Strange and Ant Man! In this episode we discuss how to earn six figures as a motion designer, the importance of outreach and how to build trust with clients.
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096: How to scale your income through productized services w/ Brad Hussey
Motion Hatch: Helping Motion Designers Do Better Business
Brad Hussey is a web designer, online educator and digital marketing consultant based out of Canada. Brad has taught more than 600,000 indie designers, developers and professionals how to get better at their craft and make a living doing work they love. In this episode we explore how you can use a productized service model to scale your motion design business.
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095: How to make passive income as a motion designer w/ Justin Archer
Motion Hatch: Helping Motion Designers Do Better Business
Justin Archer is a freelance motion designer who also makes passive income selling templates for final cut pro editors. He has almost 22k sales from Envato alone! In this episode we explore how he started making money through After Effects templates and how you can still be successful even if a market is saturated.
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094: How to get signed by a motion graphic design agent w/ Drew Melton
Motion Hatch: Helping Motion Designers Do Better Business
For some people, the idea of having an agent seems like a dream come true. But how do you actually get signed by a motion graphic design agent? What are the benefits? And once you’ve been signed, how do you make sure you get the most out of the relationship? Find out in our latest episode!
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093: How to work effectively with difficult clients w/ Ryan Koral
Motion Hatch: Helping Motion Designers Do Better Business
Ryan Koral has spent the past 13 years telling brand stories through video storytelling. In that time, he’s learned a thing or two about working with all different kinds of clients. Join us as he shares his top takeaways on how to build a great working relationship, no matter the brief or project.
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092: How to use brand strategy to grow your motion design business w/ Melinda Livsey
Motion Hatch: Helping Motion Designers Do Better Business
Melinda Livsey is a former graphic designer turned brand strategist. In this episode, she’ll teach you how you can use brand strategy to grow your motion design business and how to price your projects based on the value they’ll provide.
info_outlineWe motion designers all feel like weirdos at times. Don’t fight it! It’s time to embrace what makes you unique and sets you apart. In fact, your surreal side can create its own opportunities. Today’s guest is in high demand precisely because of his weirdness. We chat about how personal work can get you big motion design clients.
Nick DenBoer, AKA Smearballs, does a bit of everything. He’s a director, animator, editor, music producer, and remix artist. He’s worked on Conan and created unique music videos for deadmau5. Nick has worked on some very memorable projects for big brands including KFC and Old Spice.
Personal work can get you big motion design clients
We chat about what inspires Nick to create his unique personal work. Aside from fulfilling his artistic need to create, Nick credits his personal work with landing him commercial jobs. He doesn’t necessarily do personal work with this in mind. In fact, he thinks it may scare away as many opportunities as it creates. However, it also has landed him the type of clients who really appreciate what he has to offer.
Setting client expectations in motion design
As someone who works with a wide range of clients, Nick honed his process of explaining what he does. Describing your creative process and timeline is important for setting client expectations. So is maintaining regular communication throughout the project so they know what you’ve been up to.
The value of creating a team of freelance motions designers
When it comes to large or complex projects, Nick finds that it’s helpful to bring in specialists. However, being too specialized can slow down the project if something unexpected comes up. With that in mind, we talk about the value of having a team with a wide range of knowledge as well as experts on something very specific.
In this episode
- Using your personal work to highlight what makes your work unique
- Making the important distinction between personal work and client work
- How personal work can get you big motion design clients
- Creating passion projects to stay in control of your career
- Effectively explaining what you can do for eager clients
- How to expand your team when working on complex projects
- The value of both generalists and specialists
- Concerns about not infringing on brand copyrights
Quotes
“I see my personal work as a business card…. People actually hire me because of that off-putting, weird, crazy stuff.” [6:32]
“If you literally are in a financial position where you have to take every job, you lose control over your own career.” [13:42]
“You need people who can put a whole project together and do everything from scratch and you also need specialists. So I think there’s shoes to fill in both realms. It’s not like one is better than the other.” [32:10]
Links
Follow Nick on Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Vimeo | YouTube