061: How to get into the tech industry as a motion designer w/ Sharon Harris

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 Accelerator students, Giuseppe about how he niched down his animation studio Motion Aptitude to work on projects he loves.

About Giuseppe Forestieri

Giuseppe Forestieri is the Animation Director of his own studio, Motion Aptitude 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. In this episode, he explains how he found his niche and hopes he can inspire other designers to pursue the work they love. 

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When Motion Hatch first started it was a side hustle, now it's a company! Have you considered starting your own motion design project to help you grow your career? Our founder Hayley Akins explains how and why she started this motion design podcast and what she’s learnt along the way.

About Hayley Akins

Hayley started Motion Hatch with the aim of helping freelance motion designers with the business side of motion design – but she wasn’t sure how to achieve this.

At the time, Hayley felt she had three choices for a motion design project: a podcast, blog or YouTube channel (she now has all three!). Initially Hayley didn’t feel confident filming videos and writing wasn’t her passion, so she decided to focus on creating her own motion design podcast.

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Looking to pursue motion design side projects but unsure how to find balance with your day job? In today’s episode Charli Marie explains how side projects can help motion designers to improve their craft and process.

About Charli Marie

Charli Marie is a Youtuber, podcast host and Creative Director at email marketing company ConvertKit. 

Throughout her working career, Charli has always pursued some side projects outside of her 9-5 role. Currently she creates weekly content on her YouTube channel and podcast, Design Life, sharing insights into life as a professional designer alongside tutorials and advice on design tools and concepts.

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Ever wondered how motion design studios become known worldwide for their work? In today’s episode Jay Grandin explains how he built Giant Ant from the ground up and why he feels the studio has been so successful.

About Jay Grandin

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 2006, after unexpectedly creating a series of viral videos with his wife Leah, the married couple found themselves quitting their full-time jobs and working on a freelance basis for MySpace.

Slowly Jay and Leah’s videos evolved from low budget live-action content to videos starring other people. Over time, the pair found themselves hiring team members and expanding into animation too.  Eventually (after the arrival of twins!) Jay and Leah split the business into two: one for live-action and the other is the Giant Ant we know and love today.

Jay’s story shows how even the top motion design studios have humble beginnings.

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Looking to make six figures as a motion designer, but not sure where to start? Motion designer John Filipkowski discusses how he hit this financial goal and how other freelance motion designers can achieve six figures too.

About John Filipkowski

John Filipkowski is a freelance motion designer based in Chicagoland, USA. He specialises in both 2D and 3D motion design and has worked with some amazing clients - from Sony, to Paypal and Samsung!

After already achieving a six-figure salary through full-time employment, John wanted to make the move to freelancing and gain more working freedom, but he also wanted to be sure he could match his salary.

Through extensive outreach, building a large network of fellow motion designers and potential clients, and most of all, keeping a level-headed approach, John has achieved this goal.

He hopes he can inspire other freelance creatives through his story, helping them to make six figures as a motion designer and find a more rewarding way of working.

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Do you ever feel like you’ve hit the ceiling in your motion design freelance business in terms of how much money you can make? Web designer, online educator and digital marketing consultant, Brad Hussey, presents a whole new way of thinking about how motion designers can do business and productize their services. 

About Brad Hussey 

Brad Hussey started his career as a freelance web designer and spent time working at an agency, where he worked as a front-end developer collaborating with motion designers and other creatives to develop everything from apps through to mini games.

Disenchanted by the fluctuation of freelance income, he decided to explore ways to add another income stream to his web design business. He started to run his own online courses, leveraging his expertise and helping creatives build their own websites, learn to code and design their own websites.

Over time he had unlocked a new way of working – productizing – something that Brad has turned into a career both as a web designer and a coach.

Now, he 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. 

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Many motion designers dream of making passive income. But how do you actually go about doing it? 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. 

About Justin Archer

Justin Archer has been a professional motion designer for the past nine years. For half of this time he worked for companies and for the other half, he’s been freelance whilst also pursuing different personal projects.

He started building templates for Final Cut Pro more as a way for him to start commissioning his own personal projects. He wasn’t getting enough work for 3D projects at the time and so he started using Envato as a way to make his portfolio more diverse - if he sold anything, that was simply a bonus.

He did some research and noticed that it was more multi-purpose motion graphics that seemed to sell well, so he started creating these - things like titles and lower thirds.

Before he knew it, he had a thriving side hustle that was generating him passive income. Here’s how he did it.

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For some people, the idea of working with an agent who helps you to find work seems like a dream come true. But how do you even go about getting signed by a motion graphic design agent? 

Join Hayley and Drew Melton, Founder of artist representation agency Closer and Closer as he shares his tips on how to find the perfect agent and foster an amazing partnership with them.

About Drew Melton

Drew Melton started out his career as a graphic designer. He dropped out of college and started freelancing full-time.

He started a blog called The Phraseology Project. People could submit their work and he used this to practice his typography and grow his following at the same time.

He started Closer and Closer out of an attempt to get out there and meet people - he felt like he lived in a beautiful, extroverted city but he spent all his time indoors in front of a computer screen. He decided to leverage his natural people skills and his experience to bring people together to accomplish more than they could on their own.

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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.

About Ryan Koral

Ryan Koral has always loved shooting video. He started his business 17 years ago and what started as a $300 one-off shoot for his first client quickly lead to him and his team flying all around the world shooting beautiful weddings.

But as time went on and he started a family, he wanted to grow his business without the need to travel so frequently. A friend of his said “Ryan, you can tell peoples’ stories through video - it doesn’t have to be the story of their wedding.” and this opened his eyes to the possibilities in front of him.

He then rebranded his business, which is now called Tell Studios and 5 years ago he started another business called Studio Sherpas, where he talks about the business side of growing a video business. He also has a weekly podcast called Grow Your Video Business.

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When you price your motion design projects, do you think about the value that you’ll bring to your client? How about asking them what success would look like?

These two things in combination will allow you to create your best work and get paid well for it. Join Brand Strategist Melinda Livsey as she teaches you how.

About Melinda Livsey

Melinda Livsey started her career as a graphic designer before turning to brand strategy and education. She teaches other designers how to make the switch from designing to becoming a brand strategist. 

She really wanted to work on bigger projects so she made the move from graphic design to brand identity. From there, she learned she could solve even bigger problems and help businesses to make their brands more profitable and memorable.

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