Kristin Koch - Anne Wollenberg

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My design life...
Kristin Koch
Senior compositor, Nice Shoes
www.niceshoes.com
Computer Arts: What does your job
involve and what skills are required
Kristin Koch: I do a lot of compositing with
live-action footage, and I’ve been doing
more design and animation over the past
couple of years. Most of our clients are ad
agencies. My work involves collaborating
with designers and compositors, working
with an art director and creative director,
and sitting in on client calls. I use After
Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator, PFTrack,
and I’m learning Nuke.
CA: What’s a typical workday like
KK: I take the subway into work. I try to
keep work separate from my outside life,
but sometimes I’ll be doing sketches on
the train. Once I’m at work, there’s no such
thing as a ‘typical’ day. One day we’ll be
designing storyboards, the next we’re
compositing or rotoscoping.
CA: What’s the best part of your job
KK: The variety: it’s a dynamic job that
never gets boring. I work with a great team
and I get so much inspiration from my
co-workers. The other thing I love is the
fact that I can have a job like this – if I was
told I could do this all day when I was 12,
I would have said: ‘Wow, I’m going to have
the coolest life ever!’
CA: What are your biggest challenges
KK: It’s a challenge when people don’t
necessarily love what you’ve done, and
you have to stand back and not take it
personally. Also, we have so many tools
and applications available to us. Things
are constantly changing and it can be
a challenge trying to keep up with
everything that’s out there.
CA: How do you stay fresh
KK: The internet is actually really inspiring
– just seeing the amazing things people
are doing. I spend a lot of time looking at
websites like FFFFOUND! for inspiration.
I’m not just talking about art and design
though. Ridiculous things can be very
inspiring as well.
Computer Arts November December 2011 2009
www.computerarts.co.uk
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The design manual 55
My design life Organisation Designer tunes
How to be more organised
Words: Jamie Wieck www.jamiewieck.com
Icons: Anton Weflö www.antonweflo.com
Tunes to design to…
Tracks to get through the week
By Ben Phelp, senior designer, Playgroup,
www.playgroup.com
Not the enemy
An organised designer
might sound like an
oxymoron, but being
creative doesn’t mean
you can’t be organised
– you need to have
some kind of organised conduit to fulfil
that creative. You’re operating as part of a
business and you need to be able to deliver.
Paper or virtual
When it comes to
diaries and calendars,
you’re either going to
be a paper person or a
virtual calendar person.
Know what works for
you and make your choice accordingly.
Some people swear by online calendars
and task-management apps, others can’t
cope without using something physical.
Learn shortcuts
It’s worth taking the
time to learn as many
keyboard shortcuts as
possible. It may take
longer to look them up,
but it will speed you
up in the long run. I worked with a designer
who knew every Illustrator shortcut off by
heart – her work rate was three times
faster than everyone else’s.
Limit lists
To-do lists are useful,
but don’t spend too
much time on making
them, or it can be like
making a wall planner
for exam revision – if
you’re spending loads of time messing
around making a to-do list, you’re not
actually doing any of the tasks on it.
Don’t overthink
Be careful not to
overthink things.
You don’t always
need some grand
conceptual idea that
is one day going to get
into the D&AD Annual. Sometimes, you
really do just need to put the type that
the client wants onto a poster.
Business hours
Some people are night
owls and achieve more
outside of traditional
business hours, but if
you have a 9-5 job you
need to work within
those hours. This is a more operational way
of working and you should be able to push
on through and get on with it.
Define your brief
Learn to really listen to
what a brief is, whether
it’s been given verbally
or on paper. Maybe the
client says they want a
poster, when really
they’re asking for a sign. Learn to ignore
superfluous things that don’t need to be
done. Once you’ve identified the foundations
of a brief, everything else tends to follow.
No need to reply
Email can be very
invasive, but you don’t
always need to respond
– make an effort to
read and monitor
what’s going on
without getting sucked into a culture of
always needing to hit Reply. One trick is to
put a response in the subject line and add
‘no need to open’.
Use spare time
If you have some spare
time, take advantage
of it: don’t be tempted
to treat it as downtime.
For example, if you’re
waiting for client
approval before moving forward with a
project, you can fill the time with something
else you wouldn’t otherwise have done.
Multi-task
If you’re working on
say, three pro jects at
once, you should find
that each has its own
quantifiable identity
so you can switch
between them. I’m a big believer in getting
one thing done at a time: multi-tasking
doesn’t work for everyone.
For a Monday
pick-me-up:
‘Undertow’ by Warpaint
This is a track that’s still
quite current, although
it’s been out for a while
now. It’s a good song for a
Monday afternoon, when
you’re still adjusting to
being back at work after
the weekend: it makes a
good pick-me-up track
while still being quite
easy-going.
www.bit.ly/warpaint
_undertow
For some easy
midweek listening:
‘For 12’ by Other Lives
This is a relatively
new band and a track I’ve
been listening to lately:
it’s a definite
background music
choice when some
effortless listening is
needed in the studio.
It’s particularly good
for when a deadline
is approaching and
you need something
easy on the mind to
stay focused.
www.bit.ly/for12
_other_lives
For Friday afternoons:
‘Girl From Mars’ by Ash
I used to listen to this song
when I was 11 and trying
to redesign album covers
during art and design
lessons. It’s a bit of a
classic now and has
stood the test of time:
it’s an upbeat and retro
classic for beer ‘o’ clock
on a Friday.
www.bit.ly/girl _
from_mars
Illustrations: Andrew Thorpe, www.andrewthorpe.co.uk
Shortcuts Illustrator: Quickly create a blend by selecting two objects and hitting Ctrl/Cmd+Alt/Opt+B Computer Arts December 2011
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