Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast: Making Art Work
Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast: Making Art Work
#305: Jess Williams (2D/3D Motion Graphics, Designer, Art Director) (pt. 1 of 2)
This week on the podcast is part one of our interview with Jess Williams. She’s a professional 2D/3D motion graphics artist, designer, and art director. Jess has designed graphics for national broadcast, sports, entertainment, digital channels, television shows and films, working with clients including Disney, Netflix and Warner Brothers.
These days she works with companies and start-ups to create stunning explainer videos, logo intros/outros, social media content and product videos to tell their stories.
Anyone looking for creative ways to market their arts offerings should tune in. https://cargocollective.com/JessicaDonofrioWilliams
Welcome to the Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast. Making art work. We highlight how entrepreneurs align their artistry, passion and vision to create and pursue opportunities to capture value in the arts. The views expressed by guests on the Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily represent the views of the podcast or its hosts. The appearance of a guest on the podcast, the venture they represent or reference to any product or service does not imply an endorsement or recommendation by the podcast or its hosts. The content provided is for entertainment and informational purposes only and does not constitute business advice. Here are your hosts Andy Heis and Nick Petrella.
Andy Heise:Hi Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast listeners. I'm Andy Heise and I'm Nick.
Nick Petrella:Petrella. Jess Williams is with us today. She's a professional 2D and 3D motion graphics artist, designer and art director. She's designed graphics for national broadcast sports entertainment, digital channels, tv shows and films, working with clients such as Disney, netflix and Warner Brothers. Jess is currently working with companies and startups to create stunning explainer videos, logo intros and outros social media content and product videos to tell their stories. Thanks for coming on the podcast, jess.
Jess Williams:Thanks for having me, guys. This is a very exciting break in my day.
Nick Petrella:Well, why don't we start by having you tell us how you got started and how your career progressed?
Jess Williams:after graduating college. Well, that's a big one to lead off, okay. So I got my degree in 3D computer animation from Bowling Green State University, that's you know right here in Ohio, ohio. So it was a little daunting at that time. They were kind of telling us if you want a career, you need to work in the movies or gaming and probably move right out to LA or someplace that was making those things and that wasn't really in my financial capabilities to just move right out of college. So I moved back home, obviously, and I was able to get my first job, I think, in my field.
Jess Williams:I worked for WKYC in Cleveland, the news channel, kyc in Cleveland, the news channel, and I was the weekend morning high run operator. So basically I was just typing out people's names that they were interviewing and then putting them on screen. So I mean, it was a big deal business. I was in show business at that point, according to me. I was in show business at that point. According to me, the hours were terrible. It couldn't have been lower on the chain. I was literally just typing out people's names, but it was a start. I was learning a lot about production, which is something I didn't learn in school but definitely is right in there with what I was doing. So I learned about a lot about camera operators, audio, just the behind scene, behind the scenes stuff for live production. So you know it's it's a different way to start out. It wasn't a job in animation, but it was a job in my field.
Jess Williams:So I think that worked out great because from there I worked for some other shows, because everybody else there was working in a lot of different places. So then I worked for PBS and I just kept getting experience. I kept meeting people so important to meet people, um, cause from there I was able to. I interviewed and became a con. I was a contractor animator for the Cleveland Indians. So it was amazing. I I worked in the stadium. It was like it's a dream job, really still a dream job.
Jess Williams:I worked in the stadium and I made the graphics for the scoreboard. So, again, not something my teachers were talking about, but very much, I was doing exactly what I wanted to be doing. It was. It was amazing. Um, I was a sole contractor there, so I didn't really have a support team, but I could call upon them. They worked in another office outside in Cleveland, but I was making 2D and 3D animations for the scoreboard and then I could be at the stadium for all the games and the Indians had a really good season that year, so I'd get to stay for the games and you'd see people standing on their feet, like when my animation said get up and make noise and to see people get up and make noise I felt very powerful.
Nick Petrella:That's a nice perk too.
Jess Williams:going to the games it was a huge perk. I mean, it was like my social life. It was so very amazing to be a Clevelander and working for the Indians. I was using, doing my career, like in my. What I learned it was it couldn't have been. It couldn't have been better. So, but it was a contract job, so I was only there for the season.
Andy Heise:Yeah.
Jess Williams:And at the end of the season they did actually offer me the job. But at that same time my boyfriend at the time was moving out to Chicago for his job and asked me to come along. Unfortunately, being a contractor paid a lot better than getting the full time job at the Cleveland Indians. So I decided to move out to Chicago and it took a little bit to get my bearings, because I had never been to a big city before. I mean.
Jess Williams:Cleveland is a big is a city, but not like Chicago, right? So, um, I worked my way up in Chicago a little bit, um, working for real small sketchy places, working my way up to some bigger, better established places on bigger jobs. But the industry there is is so different than Cleveland. There's a bunch of jobs at low levels, medium, high. So it was fun, it was easier to, there was more prevalent jobs, right, there was more jobs to be had and so I worked my way up. I learned a ton a ton. I worked with great people, worked my way up. I learned a ton a ton. I worked with great people. But the hours, man, the hours killed me. I mean, I was young, I was what like in my 20s, so it's not like I had to get home for a family or take care of a house or do anything else like that yeah but that just kind of beat me up more than I, more than I could sustain on a long-term basis.
Jess Williams:So I stayed with one company for about five years and then I just couldn't. I couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't do the weekends, the late nights, it just got to be too much so and we wanted to start?
Andy Heise:Was that contract in freelance work as well, or were you employed at that point?
Jess Williams:I started out as a freelancer for the Cleveland companies that I was still working with when I got out to. Chicago. But then I got jobs, full-time jobs in Chicago from Chicago production companies.
Andy Heise:Gotcha.
Jess Williams:Yeah, um, so they were great, but the hours I mean they really it. It's like a. It was almost like a lifestyle at that point, because all the people I worked with were my good friends, so if I wasn't working with them, I was hanging out with them, and so it got real blurry where, and work was a lot of fun. Like they'd order us food, We'd have parties with the clients, like it was real blurry, except for the fact that, like if I had something to do at home, I could not do that. I was hanging out with my friends but I couldn't go take care of like other stuff. So, like having a family, we were ready to have a family and so it just wasn't going to be conducive. So we moved back home to Cleveland and again I picked up with freelance work. It's been a real nice buffer to have freelance as something to fall back on.
Jess Williams:When I moved back to Cleveland, I worked freelance for a while. I worked for a kind of sketchy startup for a while and then they just closed their doors one day and then I found my way to American Greetings, and American Greetings was amazing. I mean, it's such a creative company and they really value creatives, which is something that's hard to find. There's not, I think, around here. I'm not sure, but it was. It was great. I worked my way up from assistant art director to art director of one brand and then art director of two brands of two brands but then, after, I think, about five or six years, they got bought out and the company that bought them out was tasked with making them more profitable which they did by letting go hundreds of people, and I was one of them.
Jess Williams:So that was a tough blow and I fell back into freelance and I fell back into freelance and then it just turned out that freelance really suits my life right now and I have all this great experience that's making it easier for me and more successful for me to be a freelancer. You know, I've walked in the shoes of the art directors that are hiring me now and it's easier for me to kind of read between the lines and see what they want.
Nick Petrella:Yeah, you have that empathy. Well, you actually have sympathy. You've done it.
Jess Williams:Yeah, and I mean I know I remember how busy I was when I was the art director and having to. I mean, if you're reaching out for freelancers, it means you have no time. You have no time to do it yourself and you just like it's kind of probably an emergency, Like you can't mess around and wait, there's probably a timeline, and so I understand that and I'm there to provide them solutions and get it done for them in a way that's easy for them. So I think hopefully they're enjoying that.
Nick Petrella:Yeah, do you factor that in?
Jess Williams:when you're pricing that urgency. If it's a pure weekend job, I do Like. If they hire me on a Friday and they say they need it by a Monday, then I do. But other than that I expect to work evenings. But I work evenings on my own schedule. So like after the kids go to bed I'll come back on. You know, it's not necessarily I have to work through dinner and and not see the kids and not pick them up. So I'm happy to, I'm happy to accommodate that. They're happy to work with my schedule as long as I get it done.
Nick Petrella:So yeah, so that. So you don't have to be there at a certain time, they just have a. You have a deliverable by X day at X time, and that's up to you.
Jess Williams:Yeah, that's and that's. I am transparent with them in that manner of I will get your project done when you need it, what you want, but it doesn't mean I'm going to be online necessarily nine to five for you to be back and forth with me every couple minutes. You know what I mean, yeah.
Andy Heise:Can I ask so your approach now is primarily on the freelance or sort's sort of the, the contract. You know the, the short-term contracts, and prior to that the freelancing was more of. I think you called it a fallback in, like sort of in between jobs or to sort of even out some of those peaks and valleys of of those jobs. Yeah, is there, is your? Is your approach different to freelancing, given those two different approaches to freelancing or the two ways you you come to freelancing?
Jess Williams:It didn't really make me that happy to do it. You know, I still wanted to go out and be in a company and have that regular income and that regular schedule, be around other people. And now I, I just value being able, the time flexibility I mean. When I was working for American Greetings, I was driving an hour each way. It's two hours of just time gone, you know, and I don't want to lose two hours a day anymore. Yeah, so also on that, on that end, I want to keep doing this. I don't have a, I don't have a goal of getting a free time, full-time job anywhere at this point, and so I have to make, I really have to work on those relationships with my clients, which is something that, um, I didn't really think about before.
Andy Heise:Yeah, so your goal is to sustain the freelance business versus freelance until you find the next gig Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. Full-time gig.
Jess Williams:Yeah, and who knows? I mean there could be something down the line, but right now I'm really happy with what I'm doing and how it's going.
Andy Heise:Yeah, primarily, you'd say the sort of your, would you say your values have shift, like now, you value the time and flexibility more so than the type of work you're doing, necessarily, or have you, since you have all of that experience, are you at a place where you've got? You value the work you're doing, you value the flexibility and, and, uh, the flexibility that you have with your time.
Jess Williams:Well, I think it's a little bit of both. So when I was the art director and I was managing a bunch of people and I was managing a bunch of freelancers I had, my day was so busy from start to finish. I had a meeting scheduled in my outlook for every hour of the day. I was running here and there and it gave me a lot of joy. It did. I felt important. I couldn't I wouldn't have said that before, but looking back on it, I felt important. I felt like I'm a big deal, I was making better money than I'd ever made before. And then when I got let manager, I wasn't doing the art, I was managing people and that was like a real big hole that I was missing freelance career. I just I don't want to be running around like a chicken with my head cut off at meetings and doing all those things. I want to be doing the art and being home. I don't need to spend so much money on daycare and everything you know it's. It's a simpler life and it makes me really happy.
Andy Heise:Yeah.
Nick Petrella:Yeah, that's great. Probably much more effective too, cause I mean, when you're in one meeting, you're not doing.
Jess Williams:Yeah.
Andy Heise:About the next thing or the last. Thing.
Jess Williams:I was so stressed all the time and it just felt like life was like flying by constantly and I mean I was literally running from the moment I got up and I'd have to get up at 5 am until I went to bed, you know, just all out. And now life has slowed down and I can enjoy things more and I enjoy the projects that I'm working on and the clients, like I, can really appreciate it all. So I feel very, very fortunate.
Nick Petrella:That's great.
Andy Heise:That's great. Very, very fortunate, it's great. So I have a lot of 2d and 3d um artists in my classes. Um, you know graphic designers, illustrators, animators, Um, and admittedly, my understanding of how the animation industry works is is fairly limited. Um, can you briefly describe the career trajectories one might take? You've described several that you've taken and you kind of talked about what your instructors and faculty were saying to you. If you want to get a job in this industry, but maybe a little more modern, take on that today. Certainly, self-employment and freelancing is one of those possibilities.
Jess Williams:Yeah, I mean, I still think that gaming is huge and a lot of people want to go into gaming. From my understanding and I haven't worked in the field it is very much a lifestyle. You're going to be spending a lot, a lot of time at your chosen employer's place. There's still movies, still a great way to go, um, but it's such a great field to be in, I think still, which I'm very pleased with. You think about screens are everywhere. Everything, everything has a screen on it. Everywhere you go, you're the grocery store, your, your phone, all of your devices grocery store, your, your phone, all of your devices. Everything is screens. Every one of those videos that you see is a chance for a job, you know. So think outside of the box. And just a lot of marketing opportunities, a lot of social media. A lot of influencers need, um, motion design, graphics, something to make their work look better. It's everywhere. So just really keep an open mind and even make a niche, you know, but it's everywhere and it's a great field to be in, yeah.
Nick Petrella:So how do you stay on top of all the advancements in software for animation and video editing? I mean, the young people listening, they're in the middle of it, so they probably don't realize that, but as an older person I think, man, why do they keep changing this? Yeah?
Jess Williams:Yeah, yeah, yeah, great question. It's difficult. I try, you know I try. I try to stay on top of trends, more so than software. So, like the actual visual looks and I really think of myself as an artist you have this toolbox and there's a million ways to solve to get the final result. So maybe I'm not doing it with the latest and greatest software, maybe I am, but just keep an eye open for what they're doing and then look into how you can make it, and that's, that's all I can do. I mean, software, being the tech genius, was never my like foothold, but making great art is something I'm really into.
Nick Petrella:So just figure out.
Jess Williams:You know it's driven by that.
Nick Petrella:Yeah, so it's, it's real, it's happening organically. You're not actively out there searching for the latest and greatest, you're focusing on the art and you see it as purely utilitarian.
Jess Williams:Yeah, yeah. I always think of myself as like a plumber. I think of myself as I have a set of tools. People want something. How am I going to make that? You know, the DIY handyman can get it done, you know, and mine at least doesn't need to be structurally functional, so it doesn't matter what it took to get to get to the end result, as long as I get to the end result.
Nick Petrella:Yeah, gotcha.
Andy Heise:Along. The same line says have you ever, have you ever, taken on a project and thought, okay, well, now I got to figure out how to do that? Like you, committed to doing something and maybe you weren't sure how it was going to work and you said, okay, well, now I gotta figure out how to do that. Like you, committed to doing something, maybe you weren't sure how it was gonna work and you said, okay, well, now I gotta figure this out uh, pretty much every single project starts out like that for me, pretty much everything I do.
Jess Williams:I'm like, yeah, I could do that. And then I'm like, oh, I think I think the hardest one was when I was in Chicago. My employer accepted a job for I forget some gum brand, but basically they wanted this 3D commercial and he knew that I had 3D experience and so he said, yeah, we could do that and it had like a real short deadline. But then it turns out that they don't use maya, which is what I was trained on in school for like four years. I learned the program maya. And then they're like, but we don't have maya, we have cinema 4d. And I'm like, okay, it'll probably be fine. I mean, I got the project done and it was a success. But there is a learning curve in between projects. But I'm so glad I did that and that's a great way for me to I learn quickly when I absolutely have to yeah.
Nick Petrella:So they didn't have an export to button? No, they did not. Save't have an export to button? No, they did not. They did not.
Jess Williams:They did not whatsoever, but it turned out great. Now I still exclusively use cinema, cinema 4d, because it suits the projects that I do better than Maya did. Cinema is quicker to get running and make something and easier to make changes, which is my world.
Andy Heise:So those both sound like good things.
Jess Williams:Yeah, yeah.
Andy Heise:Yeah, exactly. Well, I think, you know, I think it's again coming from like thinking about my, the students that I have. It's like, you know, they, they think they have, they'll have to have, they have to have answers to everything and if they don't, then they're, they're lacking in some way. But but really, it's this, it's this, um, this attitude, right, this mindset that, oh yeah, I can, I can figure this out, I can do that.
Jess Williams:Yeah, I mean it's yes, definitely, and the willingness to. I don't think I went home for like three days when. I accepted that project. I was just learning trying to slyly watch, like how to get started in Cinema 4D, so it was scary, but that's a great way to learn for me personally.
Nick Petrella:Sure. So, jess, in your bio it states you partner directly with clients to help them tell their stories in various mediums. How do you do that, and is there a template you have when meeting clients for the first time?
Jess Williams:I'm still learning how I do what I do and there is no template, but so, yeah, so clients, they want their video. Right, they need a video. They come to me and I try to make it as easy as possible for them to just tell me what they want, tell me what they have and try to use what they have and make it easy for them. That's part of like what I am trying to establish in what happens.
Jess Williams:When people come to me as who I am right, like I want to make it easy, I want to make it fun and I want it to be successful in telling their story. And when I say that, I mean you know, they're all coming from different brands, different walks of life and they want this service. So they don't want it done in like my art style. More often than not, they want it from their point of view, from their perspective. So I just try to absorb as much as I can and research their brands and bring it to life like as if they had made it, not as if I had made it for them.
Nick Petrella:Yeah.
Jess Williams:If that makes sense.
Nick Petrella:It does so. But I mean, if you have, if you have a youthful brand, if you have an active brand, if you have a stately brand, do you have them bring ideas such as an old Six Flags commercial or an Empire carpet commercial? Does it help you to see what they're thinking?
Jess Williams:It would be hugely helpful if they do that. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't, and I just have to gauge where they're at, because a lot of times people have never worked with somebody to create a video before and have no idea what goes into it and just need a video. Other people have a very specific, very, very specific vision that they're trying to accomplish and I don't want to intimidate the person who's never made a video and scare them out of it. I just want to meet them where they're at and work together with them on it.
Nick Petrella:Sure.
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