Abraham E
Q&A | Abraham E
Junior Motion Designer
Published
March 2024
Abraham emits a sincere love for all things motion. His time at Buff as a junior motion designer has most certainly cultivated this idea, leading him to create a distinctive style that has all the features of great work; attention to detail, craft and tantalising taste that has been developed over years of indulging in what our space has to offer.
We’re given the opportunity to look into how he sees the world, his challenges in life and what led him down the path of becoming a motion designer.
01
Why did you pick motion design as a career path?
I don’t think I ever consciously “picked” it, hell, I wasn’t even aware it existed, but after trying out various things from disciplines I thought I wanted to get into, this motion ‘thing’ gave me a more visceral and satisfying feeling (especially when I actually make something decent), I just had to see how far I could take it. I’m still chasing that…Like many, I tend to consume a lot of moving image content, especially films and animated series, and while I’ve never made anything of the quality I actually consume, I’m always amazed at what can be created with some time, basic understanding of animation & design and a decent computer.
Over the years I’ve been trying to get into this discipline, I’ve been told (and noticed) that I don’t need to know everything, let alone be an expert at anything, but at least strive to do the simple things well, which makes me hopeful and excited to bring the weird ideas in my head to life, however simple and mundane.
“Learning to “cut your cloth”, is something my creative director at Buff, Tom Allen, often reminds us of - that is, assess the brief’s parameters, the time available and your resources, to problem solve a workable creative solution.”
02
What’s been the biggest challenge moving from university to studio life?
Meeting deadlines, whilst maintaining a high quality. Before leaving uni, I knew I’d struggle with that, and a couple of years into doing this full-time, I’m still slapped in the face with the reality of tight client deadlines we can’t always push back on, which need to be attacked with a certain level of efficiency whilst delivering something we can be still proud of.
Learning to “cut your cloth”, is something my creative director at Buff, Tom Allen, often reminds us of - that is, assess the brief’s parameters, the time available and your resources, to problem solve a workable creative solution.
The aforementioned skill is one I still need a lot of improvement on, but I’m fortunate to be in an environment that’s understanding of that.
03
What does your day to day as a motion designer
look like?
Luckily, it varies. My main role is to often take storyboarded designs (i.e. styleframes) into animatics then translate them into compelling animations as best as I can, these tend to be for content like explainers, animated brand assets or motion toolkits, iterate on them and prepare them for delivery.
Depending on the project, I might also be involved in the early exploration phases once we get a script from a client, and brainstorm how we might translate parts of the script into compelling and understandable visuals for animation. I also get the chance to contribute to the early R&D phases in some projects, which tends to be a great way to try a bunch of new and different ideas and see what might have potential for the ‘final’ thing.…And seeing all the experiments and tests gathered in one ’view’ is so darn satisfying!
04
Is there a part of motion design you’d like to explore in the future?
Over the years, I’ve grown really captivated with story-driven motion design and animation pieces, fuelled by more intentional narrative with a minimal and abstract visual design approach.
The ones where things move with a level of character that almost looks like acting - even if there’s no characters, and where the message resonates with you on a more profound level, almost forgetting it’s an ad, if one at all…
Executing that narrative-driven work with profound simplicity takes a lot of skill, but the motion design industry is full of so many ridiculously skilled storytellers and artists that have done it time and time again and as I continuously develop my skills and taste, I hope to one day be able to tell worthwhile stories and ideas like that (or get a lil close👀).
“If you can’t do with what you have, you can’t do even when you have more”.
05
What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learnt so far as a motion designer?
I’ve heard and been given a handful of great nuggets over the years, but that quote from The Critics Company, a group of young filmmakers from Kaduna, Nigeria, stuck with me since the pandemic. These filmmakers make highly creative short sci-fi films with
basic DIY equipment to bring their ideas to life however they can. It's a great reality check and reminder of how creating
great work, often, isn’t really about the high-end equipment, expensive software or fancy location(s), but about ingenuity, inventiveness and hard work. I’m now fortunate to have most of the tools and resources I need to create work I’m interested in, and hope to hold onto that nugget as a reminder to focus on what really matters and maximise what I already have to keep creating things that make me smile :)
