August 4, 2024 • 35 mins
Andrea Dionisio talks about how he started in the industry, and how he managed to build METAphrenie, an award-winning creative design studio based in Los Angeles, specializing in motion graphics, visual effects, and branding.
Known for their innovative approach and stunning visuals, they have worked with a range of clients from global brands to major broadcast networks, creating memorable and impactful visual experiences.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
This is Design Voices with Daniel Trainer.
(00:05):
We're going to hear from industry professionals and leaders in the field of design.
Today, we're joined by...
Andrea Dionisio, and I'm the executive creative director of Metaphrenie,
and we are a motion graphics design agency based in Los Angeles,
with also an office in Dubai.
(00:27):
And we've been around for almost 20 years, it'll be 20 years in November,
that we've been in existence.
Well, we're very grateful to have you here with us, and I guess to start,
could you tell us a little bit about your journey into the world of design,
and what initially drew you into this field?
Well, I've always been artistic as a kid, and I've always been drawing,
(00:52):
and early on in my childhood I did a lot of painting and traditional art.
And then later in my teens I discovered airbrushing,
and I started doing a lot of airbrushing, and then, you know,
back in the day, this is pre all the fancy computers we have now,
a lot of graphic design was created with the airbrush.
(01:15):
And so in my sort of exposure to other airbrush artists,
I started to learn about graphic design,
and it was a field I had really no idea about.
And so probably around 17 I decided that's kind of the field I wanted to sort of focus on,
and then started looking at universities around the world,
(01:36):
and ended up applying to go to Parsons School of Design.
And they've got a headquarter based in New York, but they also have a campus in Paris.
And I'm Italian, I was living in Rome at the time, so Paris was not too far away,
and so I applied to the Paris campus and ended up going there.
And then specifically sort of my journey into motion graphics,
(02:00):
I remember very, very clearly because I was in Paris,
and I went to watch the movie The Island of Dr. Moreau,
and the opening titles were done by Kyle Cooper at the time when he was at RGA,
which was a sort of very big agency that created Seven,
and a lot of sort of the big original film titles that sort of kickstarted this whole sort of movement.
(02:26):
And I hadn't seen Seven at the time,
but The Island of Dr. Moreau had these incredible sort of like typographic heavy focused titles.
And when I saw it, I knew instantly that moment that's what I wanted to do.
And then, you know, the rest is history.
I'm in university, that's something that I sort of focus on,
and it wasn't really offered at the time.
(02:49):
And, you know, I graduated in 2000,
and there was courses of video editing and some sort of film production stuff.
But as far as motion graphics goes specifically, there wasn't really anything available.
And so I talked to my advisors and professors,
and we sort of customized a separate sort of like course that I would do,
(03:14):
actually with a good friend of mine that we ended up opening our company together at the time,
on motion graphics and sort of like focusing on animation.
I think moving now more into the design and philosophy process,
I'd like to ask you, how would you describe your design philosophy?
What core principles guide your work?
(03:35):
The core principle is form follows function.
I think a lot of times that gets lost,
and it's more about how things look more so than how they function.
And I think the core tenet of design is solving a problem.
We're designers, we're not artists, and art doesn't necessarily solve any problems,
(04:00):
but design needs to solve some specific problem.
And so I think form follows function is, for me personally,
one of the most important things to focus on.
Can you walk us through what a typical design process is for you,
from concept to final execution?
I think for us it's maybe a little bit unique.
(04:23):
We tend to sort of encompass the full gamut of design disciplines.
We act in a way as an agency sometimes, but also as the design company
and the post-production facility.
So we tend to sort of have a holistic approach to a lot of the projects that we do.
In the case of something that's say, motion graphics related,
(04:49):
there's usually an initial brief from a client.
We tend to sort of have a sit down with them and go through those specifics.
And then we like to take as much time as possible up front to brainstorm internally
and develop some concepts and ideas.
And those then get shared with the client.
That can be as simple as some written summaries of some ideas.
(05:16):
Maybe there are some references attached to that, maybe some rough style frames,
perhaps even something a little bit more, maybe there's a little animatic we put together.
But there's generally some sort of initial brainstorm concept that gets presented.
Maybe it's two, three, four ideas.
And we sort of discuss that with the client and sort of get their feedback on it.
(05:39):
And then we sort of hone in on the things that they like, they don't like,
and we sort of develop one idea from there that gets slowly produced.
They're very much a part of the process.
So as we sort of go through the different stages, the actual storyboard stages
where we're outlining exactly what this motion graphics piece will be,
(06:02):
they approve all of those stages.
And then we start to sort of like add various levels of design.
So with animation, there's initial maybe music involved.
We compose most of all the music that we have in our work as well.
We have a fantastic in-house composer that's worked with us for over 10 years now.
So music plays a critical role in the design.
(06:26):
Sometimes it's editorial involved, whether it's footage that we shoot
or it's supplied by our client.
And that sort of gets all put together at various stages.
And the client sort of has check-ins every few days on our progress
and makes sure that we're sort of moving along according to their expectations as well.
(06:49):
And then finally, we would show them a final product that gets shared usually
with higher-ups within the organization, and there may be sort of feedback or maybe not.
And we'll make any sort of necessary adjustments, and then it's a final delivery for them.
What's the framework for approaching new design briefs?
How do you interpret and translate them into creative concepts?
(07:13):
I think briefs are a tricky animal because it's very rare that a brief supplied by client is accurate, to be honest.
A lot of times they have an initial idea of what they're looking for, but then upon further discussion, that sort of evolves.
So I think we always make it a point to touch base with the client once we sort of read through their brief and sort of have an understanding of it.
(07:41):
We want to have an initial sort of brainstorm session or run through of what they're thinking
and what sort of their takeaways are from it, and obviously what problem are they trying to solve as well.
And many times during that conversation, it could be over the phone, sometimes in person,
there's a lot of changes or realizations on the client side of like, oh, maybe that's not exactly what we wanted or no, we actually want this instead.
(08:12):
So I guess the initial sort of brief stage is really sort of clarifying and distilling it to really understand what the client's needs are.
Who or what are your major influences when it comes to design?
Is there anybody in particular or a movement that you associate a lot with?
(08:33):
I mean, that's changed a lot over the years.
I think when I first started in university learning about graphic design, I think I gravitated towards the more contemporaries at my time.
And at that time, David Carson was huge.
Obviously, Carl Cooper was doing film titles, and I was sort of very much into that as well.
(08:59):
But my professors always said, look at the old masters because the fundamentals of design don't change.
How we do it and sort of the media changes, but design fundamentals really are universal in that sense.
But I think when you're young, you always want to look at the sort of shiniest, newest stuff.
(09:25):
But I think over the years, once I sort of got that out of my system, I really spent a lot of time going back and studying a lot of the origins of design from the late 1800s, the early 1920s, the Bauhaus movement.
And I'm very much sort of gravitated a lot towards that style of design, even now in my sort of contemporary approach to how I do things.
(09:53):
Now, as we move into the visual media and visual communications topic, we know visual media plays a crucial role in brand identity and viewer engagement.
How do you approach the creation of visual media to ensure that they're both memorable, but also that they're effective?
I think if it's effective, it usually is memorable and not necessarily the other way around.
(10:19):
Something memorable might not be really effective, and it could be memorable in the wrong sense as well.
So I think it goes back to the form follows function ethos of like, I think if you're answering or solving the problems that the client has laid out or that the client has, that functionality, that effectiveness automatically creates a memorable product.
(10:44):
And it may not be something where someone goes home and talks about it, but whether it was effective to that person and did something, there is something memorable about that.
And I think that's I think the core sort of philosophy that I would have for it.
What are some of the most significant changes that you've seen in the field of visual media design over the past few years?
(11:10):
I mean, we can talk about the changes in from a designer standpoint, but I think on a media landscape standpoint, I think lately the biggest change is sort of the attention span of how predominantly influenced by Reels and TikTok.
This sort of like five to 15 second segments of information have really changed how we approach a lot of design. And I think the attention span of millennials and Gen Z now is so short that marketers are really sort of trying to focus on grabbing their attention in the shortest amount possible.
(11:53):
When I started, there were one minute commercials, one and a half, sometimes you do two minute like anthemic commercials. Those days are gone.
No one's going to sit through two minutes, let alone even one minute.
So there's definitely been a shrinkage of time and sort of shortening of messages, which sometimes is a pity because it'd be nice sort of to sometimes to take time to tell a story.
(12:22):
When people would sit down and watch something, you had that luxury of being able to sort of create a feeling or a moment with a greater impact, I think.
I think 15 seconds, it's again, it goes to that what is attention grabbing and it's like a lot of glitz and glamour, maybe necessarily not so much functional in that sense.
(12:50):
We move now to the role of technology. How do you see the advent of digital technology and new media platforms?
How do you see them influencing your design work, particularly in the realm of visual media?
I think generally, you know, technology is always just a tool.
(13:12):
I think it's always allowed for greater sort of expression artistically.
I think initially when there's a new piece of tech, there tends to be a lot of people sort of like focusing on that tech for tech's sake.
(13:33):
And there's maybe like a short span of a period where a lot of things tend to sort of feel be the same because they're using that same piece of technology because it's new and they want to use it.
But once that sort of gets a little bit more mainstream, I think we always fall back to trying to communicate as best as we can, storytelling, functional, problem solving.
(13:58):
But I think, you know, if I look back in my early days of working in animation and post-production, you know, equipment cost a fortune.
And they were, you know, in post-production houses, you know, flame or inferno systems, which, you know, are what After Effects does today.
(14:20):
They would run more real time, but those machines could cost anywhere from, you know, 250,000 to half a million to a million dollars to set up.
And not everyone has access to that. And so now, you know, we're able to sort of create that level of design, you know, with a thousand, two thousand dollar laptop.
And we can do anywhere really.
(14:42):
So it's allowed, I think a lot of people maybe that were excluded out of this world design for cost considerations or maybe they didn't have the prerequisite, you know, sort of education study.
I think a lot of designers now don't necessarily have to be professionally trained.
There's a lot of self-taught designers out there with access to, you know, technology that allows them to do this.
(15:10):
I was going to actually just to follow on that one.
Do you feel in that sense that it's more organic how that is now spreading for the design community?
Do you feel maybe it's beneficial or could it be an over saturation?
I think I think there's always a fear of over saturation, but I think good design is always going to stand out.
(15:35):
I think this technology does create an over saturation of homogenous design, things that always tend to look the same.
And, you know, when sort of the advent of webs of, you know, Web 2.0 existed, everyone had a website and, you know, 90 percent of all websites were garbage.
(15:56):
But there was still, you know, the standouts amongst all of that anyway. And I think that, you know, that statement rings true no matter what the technology is.
So I don't think we need to be necessarily fearful of that.
I think good design is always going to be needed and stand out.
(16:17):
And whether, you know, someone is taking a formal educational path towards design or learning themselves, I think that doesn't sort of like take away from the principles of design, you know, whether you learn them yourself or through formal education.
So that's always going to stand out from the masses who are trying to design but don't really have the fundamentals.
(16:44):
What would you say are your thoughts on the use of emerging technologies like AI, augmented reality, those in the world of design?
Do you see them as tools that enhance creativity or maybe even as a bottleneck or a potential challenge?
I think it's pretty fantastic. I loved, you know, sort of seeing what AI is doing.
(17:08):
And I was very much early on in sort of like playing around and dabbling in that world.
I think there was maybe two sides to it. A lot of people were scared that it's going to replace jobs.
But again, I think AI right now still needs an operator.
And if someone doesn't understand what, you know, a good image is made, you know, the composition, et cetera, you know, AI is going to spew a lot of garbage.
(17:38):
And, you know, most of the AI you see out there isn't great.
But there are designers using AI and then you see a notable difference on sort of the style and the composition and the thought behind what they're doing.
So AI just becomes another tool.
I mean, it's great because it's going to make a lot of things easier for designers and content creators.
(18:02):
But I think over time, the really good design will sort of like, you know, sort of sift itself to the top of the pack.
And I think, you know, I'm excited personally for what AI can do for us.
It's been an incredible tool for concepting and sort of like coming up with initial sort of like rough sort of visual treatments to share with clients.
(18:29):
So far, we're just using it strictly as a sort of a tool for that.
But then we're always kind of like going back and rebuilding and recreating everything from scratch.
But I think those tools are going to get better and it's going to start to be a sort of integral in our pipelines.
So I think, you know, we should rather embrace it than try to sort of push it away because it will become sort of predominant tool in our toolbox.
(18:56):
How would you say you stay updated with all the latest technological advancements and still try and integrate them into your work?
I mean, that's definitely a great question.
I think it's easy to become complacent, especially, you know, as you get older.
I've got two teenage kids that keep me young and they're always like teaching me new things.
(19:18):
But I think just, you know, trying to read as much as possible, whether, you know, whether, you know, that's online or social media and sort of try to sort of like use those tools and experiment and see what they can do.
You know, especially as we get older, we tend to sort of like fall back to what we know and it's harder to want to learn new things.
(19:44):
But, you know, as a studio, we're always trying to stay nimble and ahead of the curve.
So it's always important for us to sort of like stay on that sort of leading, cutting edge of technology.
Now, when it comes to design, there's always going to be creative challenges and aspirations.
So I guess what are some of the biggest challenges that you've encountered in the industry and how did you navigate through them?
(20:09):
That's a good question because it's interesting, you know, in the world of motion graphics and if I look at a lot of our clients in the broadcast television realm or in the commercial realm,
I think the main, the biggest thing that's happened over my 20 years in this industry has been budgets getting smaller.
(20:34):
I remember, you know, back in the day, budgets were huge.
I mean, and that was also because the cost of production was so, so expensive.
You know, going back to, you know, when I used to work at these large post houses early on in my career, these flame suites, you know, costing half a million dollars, clients would sit there and, you know, they would pay a thousand dollars an hour to have work produced there.
(21:02):
That's a lot of money, you know, if they spend a week there or more, you know, 18 hours a day, that adds up quickly.
And that's just on a small part of what they're doing.
So, you know, budgets were definitely a lot bigger to accommodate, you know, the process to sort of create.
And now I think as, you know, design has become more attainable and the technology, the cost of technology has dropped.
(21:30):
Budgets have kind of shrunk over time.
So I think that's been a challenge, but the biggest thing is like budgets have shrunk, but also the expectation has become more.
So there's this thing we want more for less.
And I see this everywhere, you know, across different sort of design disciplines and globally as well that we have clients from all over the world, whether it's North America, Europe, the Middle East, that tends to be sort of a very sort of consistent theme.
(22:01):
And you're trying to do a lot more for a lot less and does become challenging.
And there are going to be clients that are strictly looking for the cheapest possible product.
And there's no, you can't sort of like fight that.
They will go and find someone on Fiverr, you know, on these sort of like, you know, design websites and hire somebody for incredibly cheap.
(22:30):
I think generally there needs to be more of a sort of a growing sort of consensus among the designers to maintain, you know, a relative sort of budgetary levels for certain products.
And obviously the scope changes depending on what the project is and on what the execution is.
(22:53):
But that's hard because it's hard to sort of get everyone together and sort of come to a consensus.
And I'm not talking about a union either.
But generally, you know, on the other side, there are clients that are seeking out the best of the best.
They want to, you know, they do want to have the best work, the best product.
(23:14):
That doesn't necessarily mean the most expensive either.
But they are sort of those two sort of fighting sides, like those looking for the cheapest product and those looking for the best.
And but I'm not sure what the long term real solution is.
I think it's just a very hard sort of world to navigate.
(23:39):
As a studio, we try to explain and educate our clients as much as we can on, you know, what differentiates us from others, why we may be more expensive than other people.
And, you know, they can make an informed decision on that, whether they want to spend, you know, the money and work with us or whether they maybe want to sort of like have, you know, a cheaper price and work with somebody else.
(24:06):
And it may be, you know, still get a product that they're happy with, but maybe on a sort of general sort of like global design level, it might not be as good as it could have been.
Now, when you look ahead, what are some of the goals or projects that you aspire to achieve in the next few years?
It's funny, you know, I mentioned originally me watching the titles to the Island Doctor Moreau and being incredibly inspired by that.
(24:31):
I've yet to do an opening film title in my 20 years.
That's that was my dream, but it's never been attained.
So I would say on a personal level, I would still I would still love to do the opening credit sequence to a film or TV show.
That would be fantastic.
(24:52):
Now we come to universal themes in design.
In your opinion, what unites designers across different cultures and disciplines in the universal quest to create something simple, functional and beautiful?
I think the key word is beautiful.
I think designers always strive for beauty, and I think obviously beauty is interpreted differently amongst different cultures.
(25:18):
I've I've had the fortune of living in many countries around the world.
And, you know, when we started Metaphrénie, we originally in Berlin and then we opened an office in Dubai and now in Los Angeles.
So we've had a lot of clients across, you know, different cultures.
And there is beauty as a as a sort of like a goal is always something I would say universal universally sort of talked about amongst designers amongst clients wanting to sort of attain that.
(25:56):
I would say that finally, if designers rule the world, the world would be more beautiful and probably definitely more peaceful as well.
But again, you know, I think the form follows function is also important.
I think functionality is beautiful unto itself.
And I think design that's successful no matter where it is and no matter what language and where it's done and the colors used and the type of, you know, aesthetic approach.
(26:29):
If it's functional, it's beautiful.
And so I would sort of say that's probably the unifying universal theme.
And funny enough, I will add that Middle East, because I did spend, you know, sort of, you know, almost a decade there.
If you go to a lot of the sort of the big Gulf countries, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, there's they are very design forward over there,
(27:01):
whether it's architecture in sort of how they design the community, the streets, you know, signage, the airports, everything is really, really designed forward, even more so than Europe is.
And they've taken, you know, a lot of a lot of cues, I think, from what Europe did and modernized that.
(27:28):
But if you've ever been, it's a fantastic sort of designers playground because, you know, really across the board, I would say some of the most incredible sort of like design forward countries right now.
Now, we know design plays a major role in shaping our everyday lives.
But what role do you believe it does in shaping our everyday lives and society at large?
(27:51):
I think I mean, I think design shapes everything.
Whether you know whether you're driving your car and looking at a speedometer, someone designed that, you know, you're driving your Tesla and you're looking at that digital screen, you know, designers have been involved in what that is and how that information is displayed to you.
You know, the signage in streets, website, like everything that we see and how we move through this world is designed, you know, the homes we live in, the cars that we drive, the airplanes we fly in.
(28:27):
So I think I think most people don't sort of don't really sort of appreciate or understand like really how much design is influencing their lives. But I think I think most good designers, you know, walk and see and notice these things and appreciate when something's done well.
(28:52):
Looking way off into the future of design, how do you see evolving, especially in the context of global challenges and advancements?
You know, as I touched upon earlier, I think, you know, the fundamentals of design don't change.
I think it's what's happened now, and it's been happening for, you know, for decades, but it's becoming even more is this, you know, the democratization of design, whether you think about it through websites like Canva, Wix, and Squarespace.
(29:26):
I think the challenge is that with this sort of like templated design approach, things, you know, even though it's good, and you know, this is, you know, this is like decent, good, clean design, things just tend to sort of be homogenous and look the same all the time.
And I think that's what we're seeing. I think a lot of people gravitating towards these templates for everything. And I'm sure AI is going to get there as well, you know, AI is going to create all these templates for us.
(29:52):
And things will just start to just feel the same and there will be a monotony to design, but then it'll take people with, you know, with the understanding of those fundamentals of design and with the desire to sort of push beyond what everyone else is doing to be able to sort of like keep design moving forward in that sense.
(30:16):
And I think what I'm finding a lot amongst a lot of my designer friends is a want to go back to the analog, you know, whether you see photographers now clamoring to have film and experiencing that that manual process of adjusting all the settings on your camera,
(30:37):
going through the manual process of developing your own film to even going back to, you know, the origins of printing screen printing, you know, four color dies, creating that manually versus, you know, the digital print side of things and wanting to create elements in motion graphics that are manmade, you know, the handmade,
(31:01):
whether it's filming certain effects manually versus using a plugin.
We've done a lot of I've always loved lens, you know, traditional lens flares in film.
And obviously there's plenty of motion graphics plugins or presets that you can buy to sort of create that. But we found ourselves also wanting to do little film shoots and like capture those in camera ourselves and have an organic element that we can use, you know, in our digital work.
(31:34):
So I think I think designers that that get a little bit jaded with technology tend to always sort of want to sort of gravitate back to an analog or organic sort of way of producing something.
That's not to say it's going to stop this sort of gray grayness. I think a lot of people do appreciate the ease of execution of like, okay, I have a small business. I want to create a quick website.
(32:02):
I can't afford a designer. Well, I'm just going to jump onto Wix and do it myself and pick these templates and hear my pictures. And it works for them.
They may not stand out and may not necessarily, you know, sort of want or have the need to grow business to a level that will require expert designers.
(32:23):
And that's totally fine. But there will always be a need for for, you know, design with intent or design that really is functional and solves problems.
Again, I really can't thank you enough for this. It has been completely amazing hearing your perspective.
To end, I would like to ask you what's one piece of advice that you could give to aspiring designers out there? Even if it was something short, what would it be?
(32:51):
I think as we've kind of like touched upon, it's been a bit of a theme on this on this talk is I would say study the old masters.
I think it's easy to to want to jump in and see the greatest and greatest and AI and this and that.
But go to the old masters, you know, your Saul Bassett's, your Paul Rand's, Massimo Vignelli, Milton Glaser, Jan Tisholt.
(33:14):
These are incredible designers who have sort of laid the foundations for what we know designed to be today.
But also look outside your field of interest. You know, I think in visual media, we're easily forget about architecture and photography.
And there's so much to learn and understand and find inspiration from those other fields of design.
(33:41):
And as I sort of gotten older, I've, you know, I love to do, you know, product design myself.
I have a huge fascination into architecture as well.
And that really doesn't form a lot of my traditional motion graphics as well.
When I was in university in the in the late 90s, that was sort of, you know, the advent of the Mac happened.
(34:08):
You know, desktop publishing was just starting. So like, I believe when I first started using Photoshop version three or just two or three that, you know,
back then, that's all we wanted to do is like, oh, digital, digital, digital Photoshop, you know, using the first version of After Effects.
And I had one professor that said, don't do anything digital for now. There will be plenty of time for that.
(34:33):
Learn how to do things by hand. You will appreciate it as you get older.
And, you know, she made it a point in her class that no one was allowed to touch a computer and do everything by hand, you know,
doing letterpress by hand, getting stencils, getting the sort of rub on different fonts and letters and building titles and typography by hand.
(34:57):
And now it's something that that sort of like texture that that gives you, you know, you can fake it digitally,
but there's something beautiful about going back to those analog organic elements.
And they're not always appreciated or be able to use everywhere.
But I think it's definitely something valuable that that all designers should go and seek out.
This is Design Voices with Daniel Trainer.
(00:05):
We're going to hear from industry professionals and leaders in the field of design.
Today, we're joined by...
Andrea Dionisio, and I'm the executive creative director of Metaphrenie,
and we are a motion graphics design agency based in Los Angeles,
with also an office in Dubai.
(00:27):
And we've been around for almost 20 years, it'll be 20 years in November,
that we've been in existence.
Well, we're very grateful to have you here with us, and I guess to start,
could you tell us a little bit about your journey into the world of design,
and what initially drew you into this field?
Well, I've always been artistic as a kid, and I've always been drawing,
(00:52):
and early on in my childhood I did a lot of painting and traditional art.
And then later in my teens I discovered airbrushing,
and I started doing a lot of airbrushing, and then, you know,
back in the day, this is pre all the fancy computers we have now,
a lot of graphic design was created with the airbrush.
(01:15):
And so in my sort of exposure to other airbrush artists,
I started to learn about graphic design,
and it was a field I had really no idea about.
And so probably around 17 I decided that's kind of the field I wanted to sort of focus on,
and then started looking at universities around the world,
(01:36):
and ended up applying to go to Parsons School of Design.
And they've got a headquarter based in New York, but they also have a campus in Paris.
And I'm Italian, I was living in Rome at the time, so Paris was not too far away,
and so I applied to the Paris campus and ended up going there.
And then specifically sort of my journey into motion graphics,
(02:00):
I remember very, very clearly because I was in Paris,
and I went to watch the movie The Island of Dr. Moreau,
and the opening titles were done by Kyle Cooper at the time when he was at RGA,
which was a sort of very big agency that created Seven,
and a lot of sort of the big original film titles that sort of kickstarted this whole sort of movement.
(02:26):
And I hadn't seen Seven at the time,
but The Island of Dr. Moreau had these incredible sort of like typographic heavy focused titles.
And when I saw it, I knew instantly that moment that's what I wanted to do.
And then, you know, the rest is history.
I'm in university, that's something that I sort of focus on,
and it wasn't really offered at the time.
(02:49):
And, you know, I graduated in 2000,
and there was courses of video editing and some sort of film production stuff.
But as far as motion graphics goes specifically, there wasn't really anything available.
And so I talked to my advisors and professors,
and we sort of customized a separate sort of like course that I would do,
(03:14):
actually with a good friend of mine that we ended up opening our company together at the time,
on motion graphics and sort of like focusing on animation.
I think moving now more into the design and philosophy process,
I'd like to ask you, how would you describe your design philosophy?
What core principles guide your work?
(03:35):
The core principle is form follows function.
I think a lot of times that gets lost,
and it's more about how things look more so than how they function.
And I think the core tenet of design is solving a problem.
We're designers, we're not artists, and art doesn't necessarily solve any problems,
(04:00):
but design needs to solve some specific problem.
And so I think form follows function is, for me personally,
one of the most important things to focus on.
Can you walk us through what a typical design process is for you,
from concept to final execution?
I think for us it's maybe a little bit unique.
(04:23):
We tend to sort of encompass the full gamut of design disciplines.
We act in a way as an agency sometimes, but also as the design company
and the post-production facility.
So we tend to sort of have a holistic approach to a lot of the projects that we do.
In the case of something that's say, motion graphics related,
(04:49):
there's usually an initial brief from a client.
We tend to sort of have a sit down with them and go through those specifics.
And then we like to take as much time as possible up front to brainstorm internally
and develop some concepts and ideas.
And those then get shared with the client.
That can be as simple as some written summaries of some ideas.
(05:16):
Maybe there are some references attached to that, maybe some rough style frames,
perhaps even something a little bit more, maybe there's a little animatic we put together.
But there's generally some sort of initial brainstorm concept that gets presented.
Maybe it's two, three, four ideas.
And we sort of discuss that with the client and sort of get their feedback on it.
(05:39):
And then we sort of hone in on the things that they like, they don't like,
and we sort of develop one idea from there that gets slowly produced.
They're very much a part of the process.
So as we sort of go through the different stages, the actual storyboard stages
where we're outlining exactly what this motion graphics piece will be,
(06:02):
they approve all of those stages.
And then we start to sort of like add various levels of design.
So with animation, there's initial maybe music involved.
We compose most of all the music that we have in our work as well.
We have a fantastic in-house composer that's worked with us for over 10 years now.
So music plays a critical role in the design.
(06:26):
Sometimes it's editorial involved, whether it's footage that we shoot
or it's supplied by our client.
And that sort of gets all put together at various stages.
And the client sort of has check-ins every few days on our progress
and makes sure that we're sort of moving along according to their expectations as well.
(06:49):
And then finally, we would show them a final product that gets shared usually
with higher-ups within the organization, and there may be sort of feedback or maybe not.
And we'll make any sort of necessary adjustments, and then it's a final delivery for them.
What's the framework for approaching new design briefs?
How do you interpret and translate them into creative concepts?
(07:13):
I think briefs are a tricky animal because it's very rare that a brief supplied by client is accurate, to be honest.
A lot of times they have an initial idea of what they're looking for, but then upon further discussion, that sort of evolves.
So I think we always make it a point to touch base with the client once we sort of read through their brief and sort of have an understanding of it.
(07:41):
We want to have an initial sort of brainstorm session or run through of what they're thinking
and what sort of their takeaways are from it, and obviously what problem are they trying to solve as well.
And many times during that conversation, it could be over the phone, sometimes in person,
there's a lot of changes or realizations on the client side of like, oh, maybe that's not exactly what we wanted or no, we actually want this instead.
(08:12):
So I guess the initial sort of brief stage is really sort of clarifying and distilling it to really understand what the client's needs are.
Who or what are your major influences when it comes to design?
Is there anybody in particular or a movement that you associate a lot with?
(08:33):
I mean, that's changed a lot over the years.
I think when I first started in university learning about graphic design, I think I gravitated towards the more contemporaries at my time.
And at that time, David Carson was huge.
Obviously, Carl Cooper was doing film titles, and I was sort of very much into that as well.
(08:59):
But my professors always said, look at the old masters because the fundamentals of design don't change.
How we do it and sort of the media changes, but design fundamentals really are universal in that sense.
But I think when you're young, you always want to look at the sort of shiniest, newest stuff.
(09:25):
But I think over the years, once I sort of got that out of my system, I really spent a lot of time going back and studying a lot of the origins of design from the late 1800s, the early 1920s, the Bauhaus movement.
And I'm very much sort of gravitated a lot towards that style of design, even now in my sort of contemporary approach to how I do things.
(09:53):
Now, as we move into the visual media and visual communications topic, we know visual media plays a crucial role in brand identity and viewer engagement.
How do you approach the creation of visual media to ensure that they're both memorable, but also that they're effective?
I think if it's effective, it usually is memorable and not necessarily the other way around.
(10:19):
Something memorable might not be really effective, and it could be memorable in the wrong sense as well.
So I think it goes back to the form follows function ethos of like, I think if you're answering or solving the problems that the client has laid out or that the client has, that functionality, that effectiveness automatically creates a memorable product.
(10:44):
And it may not be something where someone goes home and talks about it, but whether it was effective to that person and did something, there is something memorable about that.
And I think that's I think the core sort of philosophy that I would have for it.
What are some of the most significant changes that you've seen in the field of visual media design over the past few years?
(11:10):
I mean, we can talk about the changes in from a designer standpoint, but I think on a media landscape standpoint, I think lately the biggest change is sort of the attention span of how predominantly influenced by Reels and TikTok.
This sort of like five to 15 second segments of information have really changed how we approach a lot of design. And I think the attention span of millennials and Gen Z now is so short that marketers are really sort of trying to focus on grabbing their attention in the shortest amount possible.
(11:53):
When I started, there were one minute commercials, one and a half, sometimes you do two minute like anthemic commercials. Those days are gone.
No one's going to sit through two minutes, let alone even one minute.
So there's definitely been a shrinkage of time and sort of shortening of messages, which sometimes is a pity because it'd be nice sort of to sometimes to take time to tell a story.
(12:22):
When people would sit down and watch something, you had that luxury of being able to sort of create a feeling or a moment with a greater impact, I think.
I think 15 seconds, it's again, it goes to that what is attention grabbing and it's like a lot of glitz and glamour, maybe necessarily not so much functional in that sense.
(12:50):
We move now to the role of technology. How do you see the advent of digital technology and new media platforms?
How do you see them influencing your design work, particularly in the realm of visual media?
I think generally, you know, technology is always just a tool.
(13:12):
I think it's always allowed for greater sort of expression artistically.
I think initially when there's a new piece of tech, there tends to be a lot of people sort of like focusing on that tech for tech's sake.
(13:33):
And there's maybe like a short span of a period where a lot of things tend to sort of feel be the same because they're using that same piece of technology because it's new and they want to use it.
But once that sort of gets a little bit more mainstream, I think we always fall back to trying to communicate as best as we can, storytelling, functional, problem solving.
(13:58):
But I think, you know, if I look back in my early days of working in animation and post-production, you know, equipment cost a fortune.
And they were, you know, in post-production houses, you know, flame or inferno systems, which, you know, are what After Effects does today.
(14:20):
They would run more real time, but those machines could cost anywhere from, you know, 250,000 to half a million to a million dollars to set up.
And not everyone has access to that. And so now, you know, we're able to sort of create that level of design, you know, with a thousand, two thousand dollar laptop.
And we can do anywhere really.
(14:42):
So it's allowed, I think a lot of people maybe that were excluded out of this world design for cost considerations or maybe they didn't have the prerequisite, you know, sort of education study.
I think a lot of designers now don't necessarily have to be professionally trained.
There's a lot of self-taught designers out there with access to, you know, technology that allows them to do this.
(15:10):
I was going to actually just to follow on that one.
Do you feel in that sense that it's more organic how that is now spreading for the design community?
Do you feel maybe it's beneficial or could it be an over saturation?
I think I think there's always a fear of over saturation, but I think good design is always going to stand out.
(15:35):
I think this technology does create an over saturation of homogenous design, things that always tend to look the same.
And, you know, when sort of the advent of webs of, you know, Web 2.0 existed, everyone had a website and, you know, 90 percent of all websites were garbage.
(15:56):
But there was still, you know, the standouts amongst all of that anyway. And I think that, you know, that statement rings true no matter what the technology is.
So I don't think we need to be necessarily fearful of that.
I think good design is always going to be needed and stand out.
(16:17):
And whether, you know, someone is taking a formal educational path towards design or learning themselves, I think that doesn't sort of like take away from the principles of design, you know, whether you learn them yourself or through formal education.
So that's always going to stand out from the masses who are trying to design but don't really have the fundamentals.
(16:44):
What would you say are your thoughts on the use of emerging technologies like AI, augmented reality, those in the world of design?
Do you see them as tools that enhance creativity or maybe even as a bottleneck or a potential challenge?
I think it's pretty fantastic. I loved, you know, sort of seeing what AI is doing.
(17:08):
And I was very much early on in sort of like playing around and dabbling in that world.
I think there was maybe two sides to it. A lot of people were scared that it's going to replace jobs.
But again, I think AI right now still needs an operator.
And if someone doesn't understand what, you know, a good image is made, you know, the composition, et cetera, you know, AI is going to spew a lot of garbage.
(17:38):
And, you know, most of the AI you see out there isn't great.
But there are designers using AI and then you see a notable difference on sort of the style and the composition and the thought behind what they're doing.
So AI just becomes another tool.
I mean, it's great because it's going to make a lot of things easier for designers and content creators.
(18:02):
But I think over time, the really good design will sort of like, you know, sort of sift itself to the top of the pack.
And I think, you know, I'm excited personally for what AI can do for us.
It's been an incredible tool for concepting and sort of like coming up with initial sort of like rough sort of visual treatments to share with clients.
(18:29):
So far, we're just using it strictly as a sort of a tool for that.
But then we're always kind of like going back and rebuilding and recreating everything from scratch.
But I think those tools are going to get better and it's going to start to be a sort of integral in our pipelines.
So I think, you know, we should rather embrace it than try to sort of push it away because it will become sort of predominant tool in our toolbox.
(18:56):
How would you say you stay updated with all the latest technological advancements and still try and integrate them into your work?
I mean, that's definitely a great question.
I think it's easy to become complacent, especially, you know, as you get older.
I've got two teenage kids that keep me young and they're always like teaching me new things.
(19:18):
But I think just, you know, trying to read as much as possible, whether, you know, whether, you know, that's online or social media and sort of try to sort of like use those tools and experiment and see what they can do.
You know, especially as we get older, we tend to sort of like fall back to what we know and it's harder to want to learn new things.
(19:44):
But, you know, as a studio, we're always trying to stay nimble and ahead of the curve.
So it's always important for us to sort of like stay on that sort of leading, cutting edge of technology.
Now, when it comes to design, there's always going to be creative challenges and aspirations.
So I guess what are some of the biggest challenges that you've encountered in the industry and how did you navigate through them?
(20:09):
That's a good question because it's interesting, you know, in the world of motion graphics and if I look at a lot of our clients in the broadcast television realm or in the commercial realm,
I think the main, the biggest thing that's happened over my 20 years in this industry has been budgets getting smaller.
(20:34):
I remember, you know, back in the day, budgets were huge.
I mean, and that was also because the cost of production was so, so expensive.
You know, going back to, you know, when I used to work at these large post houses early on in my career, these flame suites, you know, costing half a million dollars, clients would sit there and, you know, they would pay a thousand dollars an hour to have work produced there.
(21:02):
That's a lot of money, you know, if they spend a week there or more, you know, 18 hours a day, that adds up quickly.
And that's just on a small part of what they're doing.
So, you know, budgets were definitely a lot bigger to accommodate, you know, the process to sort of create.
And now I think as, you know, design has become more attainable and the technology, the cost of technology has dropped.
(21:30):
Budgets have kind of shrunk over time.
So I think that's been a challenge, but the biggest thing is like budgets have shrunk, but also the expectation has become more.
So there's this thing we want more for less.
And I see this everywhere, you know, across different sort of design disciplines and globally as well that we have clients from all over the world, whether it's North America, Europe, the Middle East, that tends to be sort of a very sort of consistent theme.
(22:01):
And you're trying to do a lot more for a lot less and does become challenging.
And there are going to be clients that are strictly looking for the cheapest possible product.
And there's no, you can't sort of like fight that.
They will go and find someone on Fiverr, you know, on these sort of like, you know, design websites and hire somebody for incredibly cheap.
(22:30):
I think generally there needs to be more of a sort of a growing sort of consensus among the designers to maintain, you know, a relative sort of budgetary levels for certain products.
And obviously the scope changes depending on what the project is and on what the execution is.
(22:53):
But that's hard because it's hard to sort of get everyone together and sort of come to a consensus.
And I'm not talking about a union either.
But generally, you know, on the other side, there are clients that are seeking out the best of the best.
They want to, you know, they do want to have the best work, the best product.
(23:14):
That doesn't necessarily mean the most expensive either.
But they are sort of those two sort of fighting sides, like those looking for the cheapest product and those looking for the best.
And but I'm not sure what the long term real solution is.
I think it's just a very hard sort of world to navigate.
(23:39):
As a studio, we try to explain and educate our clients as much as we can on, you know, what differentiates us from others, why we may be more expensive than other people.
And, you know, they can make an informed decision on that, whether they want to spend, you know, the money and work with us or whether they maybe want to sort of like have, you know, a cheaper price and work with somebody else.
(24:06):
And it may be, you know, still get a product that they're happy with, but maybe on a sort of general sort of like global design level, it might not be as good as it could have been.
Now, when you look ahead, what are some of the goals or projects that you aspire to achieve in the next few years?
It's funny, you know, I mentioned originally me watching the titles to the Island Doctor Moreau and being incredibly inspired by that.
(24:31):
I've yet to do an opening film title in my 20 years.
That's that was my dream, but it's never been attained.
So I would say on a personal level, I would still I would still love to do the opening credit sequence to a film or TV show.
That would be fantastic.
(24:52):
Now we come to universal themes in design.
In your opinion, what unites designers across different cultures and disciplines in the universal quest to create something simple, functional and beautiful?
I think the key word is beautiful.
I think designers always strive for beauty, and I think obviously beauty is interpreted differently amongst different cultures.
(25:18):
I've I've had the fortune of living in many countries around the world.
And, you know, when we started Metaphrénie, we originally in Berlin and then we opened an office in Dubai and now in Los Angeles.
So we've had a lot of clients across, you know, different cultures.
And there is beauty as a as a sort of like a goal is always something I would say universal universally sort of talked about amongst designers amongst clients wanting to sort of attain that.
(25:56):
I would say that finally, if designers rule the world, the world would be more beautiful and probably definitely more peaceful as well.
But again, you know, I think the form follows function is also important.
I think functionality is beautiful unto itself.
And I think design that's successful no matter where it is and no matter what language and where it's done and the colors used and the type of, you know, aesthetic approach.
(26:29):
If it's functional, it's beautiful.
And so I would sort of say that's probably the unifying universal theme.
And funny enough, I will add that Middle East, because I did spend, you know, sort of, you know, almost a decade there.
If you go to a lot of the sort of the big Gulf countries, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, there's they are very design forward over there,
(27:01):
whether it's architecture in sort of how they design the community, the streets, you know, signage, the airports, everything is really, really designed forward, even more so than Europe is.
And they've taken, you know, a lot of a lot of cues, I think, from what Europe did and modernized that.
(27:28):
But if you've ever been, it's a fantastic sort of designers playground because, you know, really across the board, I would say some of the most incredible sort of like design forward countries right now.
Now, we know design plays a major role in shaping our everyday lives.
But what role do you believe it does in shaping our everyday lives and society at large?
(27:51):
I think I mean, I think design shapes everything.
Whether you know whether you're driving your car and looking at a speedometer, someone designed that, you know, you're driving your Tesla and you're looking at that digital screen, you know, designers have been involved in what that is and how that information is displayed to you.
You know, the signage in streets, website, like everything that we see and how we move through this world is designed, you know, the homes we live in, the cars that we drive, the airplanes we fly in.
(28:27):
So I think I think most people don't sort of don't really sort of appreciate or understand like really how much design is influencing their lives. But I think I think most good designers, you know, walk and see and notice these things and appreciate when something's done well.
(28:52):
Looking way off into the future of design, how do you see evolving, especially in the context of global challenges and advancements?
You know, as I touched upon earlier, I think, you know, the fundamentals of design don't change.
I think it's what's happened now, and it's been happening for, you know, for decades, but it's becoming even more is this, you know, the democratization of design, whether you think about it through websites like Canva, Wix, and Squarespace.
(29:26):
I think the challenge is that with this sort of like templated design approach, things, you know, even though it's good, and you know, this is, you know, this is like decent, good, clean design, things just tend to sort of be homogenous and look the same all the time.
And I think that's what we're seeing. I think a lot of people gravitating towards these templates for everything. And I'm sure AI is going to get there as well, you know, AI is going to create all these templates for us.
(29:52):
And things will just start to just feel the same and there will be a monotony to design, but then it'll take people with, you know, with the understanding of those fundamentals of design and with the desire to sort of push beyond what everyone else is doing to be able to sort of like keep design moving forward in that sense.
(30:16):
And I think what I'm finding a lot amongst a lot of my designer friends is a want to go back to the analog, you know, whether you see photographers now clamoring to have film and experiencing that that manual process of adjusting all the settings on your camera,
(30:37):
going through the manual process of developing your own film to even going back to, you know, the origins of printing screen printing, you know, four color dies, creating that manually versus, you know, the digital print side of things and wanting to create elements in motion graphics that are manmade, you know, the handmade,
(31:01):
whether it's filming certain effects manually versus using a plugin.
We've done a lot of I've always loved lens, you know, traditional lens flares in film.
And obviously there's plenty of motion graphics plugins or presets that you can buy to sort of create that. But we found ourselves also wanting to do little film shoots and like capture those in camera ourselves and have an organic element that we can use, you know, in our digital work.
(31:34):
So I think I think designers that that get a little bit jaded with technology tend to always sort of want to sort of gravitate back to an analog or organic sort of way of producing something.
That's not to say it's going to stop this sort of gray grayness. I think a lot of people do appreciate the ease of execution of like, okay, I have a small business. I want to create a quick website.
(32:02):
I can't afford a designer. Well, I'm just going to jump onto Wix and do it myself and pick these templates and hear my pictures. And it works for them.
They may not stand out and may not necessarily, you know, sort of want or have the need to grow business to a level that will require expert designers.
(32:23):
And that's totally fine. But there will always be a need for for, you know, design with intent or design that really is functional and solves problems.
Again, I really can't thank you enough for this. It has been completely amazing hearing your perspective.
To end, I would like to ask you what's one piece of advice that you could give to aspiring designers out there? Even if it was something short, what would it be?
(32:51):
I think as we've kind of like touched upon, it's been a bit of a theme on this on this talk is I would say study the old masters.
I think it's easy to to want to jump in and see the greatest and greatest and AI and this and that.
But go to the old masters, you know, your Saul Bassett's, your Paul Rand's, Massimo Vignelli, Milton Glaser, Jan Tisholt.
(33:14):
These are incredible designers who have sort of laid the foundations for what we know designed to be today.
But also look outside your field of interest. You know, I think in visual media, we're easily forget about architecture and photography.
And there's so much to learn and understand and find inspiration from those other fields of design.
(33:41):
And as I sort of gotten older, I've, you know, I love to do, you know, product design myself.
I have a huge fascination into architecture as well.
And that really doesn't form a lot of my traditional motion graphics as well.
When I was in university in the in the late 90s, that was sort of, you know, the advent of the Mac happened.
(34:08):
You know, desktop publishing was just starting. So like, I believe when I first started using Photoshop version three or just two or three that, you know,
back then, that's all we wanted to do is like, oh, digital, digital, digital Photoshop, you know, using the first version of After Effects.
And I had one professor that said, don't do anything digital for now. There will be plenty of time for that.
(34:33):
Learn how to do things by hand. You will appreciate it as you get older.
And, you know, she made it a point in her class that no one was allowed to touch a computer and do everything by hand, you know,
doing letterpress by hand, getting stencils, getting the sort of rub on different fonts and letters and building titles and typography by hand.
(34:57):
And now it's something that that sort of like texture that that gives you, you know, you can fake it digitally,
but there's something beautiful about going back to those analog organic elements.
And they're not always appreciated or be able to use everywhere.
But I think it's definitely something valuable that that all designers should go and seek out.
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