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It's 8 years since I updated my reel!

Time for a refresh - Here's a cut of my favourite projects from the last 10 years.

Huge thanks to all the artists who worked with me on these projects.

I’m currently opening up availability for:
– Creative Direction
- Animation
- Design/Styleframes
– Studio consulting and creative support

Hit me up!

Brushing up on my logo animation skills and giving a shout out to another one of my favourite brands.📢

@ecosia is a carbon neutral search engine that puts %100 of its profits towards climate action. So far they've planted nearly 250,000,000 trees in reforestation projects.

🌳

@vivobarefoot loop with some Heilung spice

A few more explorations with the @vivobarefoot kids Tracker boot

A few more explorations with the @vivobarefoot kids Tracker boot

A few more explorations with the @vivobarefoot kids Tracker boot

Some render tests with the world's greatest shoe brand @vivobarefoot

Some render tests with the world's greatest shoe brand @vivobarefoot

Something from the dark reaches of the archives for Halloween💀

Styleframes done for @kill2birds.tv many moons ago🌑

Part two of my reflection on that night in Copenhagen, 2016.

The hard drive issue had been solved but my sense of inspiration and excitement was giving way to a growing sense of dread.

It felt like I was walking a tightrope over an abyss of failure.

If I couldn't deliver it would feel like final proof my own harshest judgements that had been rising to the surface.

"You're worthless"

I worked more and harder than I ever had.

Anxiety gripping me tighter with every day closer to the deadline.

◼️

After many late nights and weekends in the studio, the finishing line appeared.

The client was happy. The spot even won an award. But the elation of success that I had craved never came.

I felt numb.

My health began to deteriorate as quickly as the ad was forgotten. Buried under the avalanche of new content almost as soon as it was release.

I had given everything to making that project.

I started to see that my fear of failing came from a deep sense of inadequacy. It had been there all along but this job felt so important that it brought my insecurities to the surface.

My perspective had become so skewed that a simple mistake felt like a true disaster.

That experience was a painful reminder of something I had already known but forgotten. The truth about creative work:

Sometimes this work feels important. Especially when we devote so much of our time and energy into a project. But it's really not.

The work will never love you back. But you don’t need it to.

What matters is in you.

The energy of inspiration.

The sense of expression.

The excitement of watching ideas grow and take shape.

The outcome can pay the bills but it can never define your worth. The real value is the creative process. Because it's an expression of you.

You are the value. And your expression should never be judged by any measure other than how it feels.

This is a reminder to myself and whoever needs to hear it.

You are worth infinitely more than your output.

You will always be good enough.

Nothing you can make, say or do will ever change that.

❤️

The video is a process reel of the project that broke me and shifted my perspective forever.

Copenhagen, 2016. It’s 10pm. I’m 36, but I feel like a lost little boy. I’ve messed up, and I'm scared to death.

I'm kicking a heavy Herman Miller chair around the empty studio.

Swearing through clenched teeth.

The anger is a distraction from a voice I don't want to hear.

But a message from my unconscious is creeping through the cracks.

"I knew you would fuck this up".

"You'll never be good enough".

I learned that it's ok to express a bit of anger at work from time to time, but never tears. Not at work. Not even in an empty office.

It would be months before the tears came. When I finally touched the grief of a lifetime spent believing I was broken.

And I finally began to heal.

But here, alone in the plush surroundings of this trendy Copenhagen studio, I feel with icy clarity the feeling I spent my life trying to escape.

"I'm not good enough."

"I will never be good enough."

My world is collapsing.

-

Just 2 days earlier I was living in a dream.

I was directing a car commercial at the famous Pinewood studios. The place where legends of moving image like Stanley Kubrick and Ridley Scott made some of their most iconic movies.

I really felt like someone.

(It's odd to reflect now that I needed a specific set of external circumstances to feel like I belonged to the human race.)

I flew back to Copenhagen with a hard drive containing all the footage from the shoot.

I arrived at the studio in the evening and started to upload the files.

Except there were no files.

The drive was empty.

Dead.

- It would take days to transfer these terabytes of data over the internet. We had just a few short weeks of post production time. And a mountain of work to be done.-

I didn't check the drive before I left.

Why didn't I check the drive?

The response from within pierced my heart:

"Because you're a stupid, worthless piece of shit"

On repeat.

At deafening volume.

I was familiar with my inner critic but it's words had never had so much power over me.

-

This was the night everything collapsed. And the moment I truly met my inner critic for the first time.

In my next post I’ll share the aftermath: how we saved the project, what it cost me, and what I learned

Sometimes it feels like no matter how hard you push there's just no way through.

Don't forget that some doors open inwards.

---

Some R&D from B&O Ferrari project @futuredeluxe 2023

R&D done @futuredeluxe in 2023

Do you ever struggle with executing your ideas?

I used to get lost in the early stages of a project until I grasped this concept:

Iteration

As a recovering perfectionist I used to work feverishly on all aspects of my animations at once and resist sharing anything until it was as close to perfect as I could manage.

It was a stressful and counterproductive way of working that often led to crushing disappointments when client feedback came in.

Over time I've learned to overcome those perfectionist urges and focus instead on fast iteration.

The quicker I can get an idea in front of stakeholders, the quicker the project moves forward and the more time we have to perfect a joint vision (rather than my own secret one).

This is where the idea of a 𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗺𝘂𝗺 𝘃𝗶𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 is really useful.

At every stage, do just enough to get the idea across of what you want to make. The aim is to get actionable feedback as early as possible to avoid wasted time and effort.

Use frequent milestones throughout a project and try to give each one a specific goal. To do this you need clarity on what each stage is for. Is it:

❓ To sell an idea?
❓ To tell a story through movement?
❓ To create an aesthetic?

Thinking in terms of sharing prototypes rather than "work in progress" helps to keep the focus on priority tasks.

What does each iteration demonstrate and what can you learn from it?

The video shared here is a previz I made in the early stages of a project to test an idea. I used a combination of borrowed clips and viewport renders to create this prototype.

If an animation doesn't work as a rough wireframe then no amount of polish will save it.

Sometimes we can obsess over the perfect render to the detriment of the fundamentals. But the average person barely notices all those fine details.

The fundamentals are what really make a project stand out:

🧱 Storytelling

🧱 Clarity

🧱 Composition

🧱 Flow

Build strong foundations and then iterate.🏗️

During my time with @studiotendril , @riotgames came to us with the theme of flags for their Worlds 2022 event branding.

When I started researching our treatment I fell in love with the idea of flags as the origin of motion design.

Flags have been used for centuries to create an identity—The roots of modern branding. When you put a symbol on a big piece of cloth and hoist it into the wind, you bring that symbol to life, along with all it represents.

One of the most powerful ways of creating a common identity comes from a simple piece of cloth.

Building a big event package like this is an extremely complex task. There are so many elements and fine details that must stand alone but also fit seamlessly into the whole. Every part needs careful consideration and craft.
It's easy to get lost in the details.

A principle that applies to any project is to keep shifting perspective from the close-up view to the bigger picture. Just like an engine, all the parts must work properly but if they aren't connected in the right way, nothing happens.

It's the big picture that ignites, and makes a connection on a feeling level.

In this case, a simple piece of cloth.