Q&A Michelle McNamara | Motion Designer
Motion Designer Michelle McNamara recently won the Cut&Paste Sydney tournament. Have a look at some of her creative work including the winning motion video and wish her luck for her battle in New York where she will compete against winners from other global cities!
Name: Michelle McNamara
Nickname: Mac
Profession: Motion Designer
Location: Surry Hills, Sydney, Australia
Passion: Entertaining. This can take many forms I think. I like design best when it’s entertaining and has a story.
How I got my break: Err can I say I’m in the process of breaking? I think it’s still happening. Recently, I won Cut&Paste | Sydney The Motion Graphic Designs category and will get to go to NYC to battle winners from other cities. The brief is to create a piece of motion design around a theme, in short amount of time with an audience and judges watching you. It’s a pretty intense sort of competition I suppose, but what it does do is test your ability to come up with ideas quickly and create things that an audience will respond to – instantly.
Michelle McNamara from Cut&Paste
My top tricks of the trade: Play. Your personal work is what keeps you alive and lets people see your personality. Surround yourself with things you like (sandwiches, for example) and avoid people who play World of Warcraft. Anyone who wants to dress up as an angry gnome inside their computer is weird and disgruntled with the world, and that is not a good combination.
My style in a sentence: Outré characters, in places I would like to be.
Travel destination and tips: Visit Japan. It has so many colourful and absurd things you can’t help but be inspired by it. Kyoto is particularly worth a look. It has lots of cool little back street bars and interesting people. Hiroshima is unexpectedly wonderful for shopping. I found a shop that had pretty much every colour shoe you can think of! So hard to walk out of there without buying the whole rainbow of them.
I bet you didn’t know I can: Rollerskate. I am convinced I should have been born with wheels.
I get my inspirations from: Travelling, absurdity, my friends.
My latest project is about: A giant squid that lives inside a mountain amidst a cacophony of colour and movement.
My last purchase: Deerhunter tickets
My current favourite mecho item: Cabinet Tout va bien by Antoine+Marcel
Pssstt…..One time I…
Winning the Cut&Paste tournament was a funny moment. Instead of a well-considered acceptance speech, I started listing the names of fruits that I enjoy. I think the lesson here is to keep in mind what shock will do to your ability to articulate. If I had longer to think about it, I might have managed to thank everyone!
The mecho team invites you to continue the conversation below with Michelle… Make it fun! Post comments with your own free personal Gravatar
NOTE: ARCHIVE ONLY from July-09. You may leave a comment but please note Michelle is no longer actively responding to any questions post 31 July-09.
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11 comments
11 Comments Add your own
1.
Drewe | July 1st, 2009 at 7:52 am
Nice interview. I look forwards to the next one when Michelle wins the finals.
2.
Rico | July 2nd, 2009 at 9:10 am
hey cool stuff! can’t beleive I missed out on that tournament! how u find out about it and what was the process to apply? kick it in ny!
3.
Tim | July 2nd, 2009 at 12:19 pm
How do you make money? Who are your clients? I want your job!
4.
Michelle | July 3rd, 2009 at 5:19 pm
Hi Rico,
Thanks for your words of encouragement. Cut and Paste is featured in IDN magazine. This is something you should get your eyeballs onto pronto if you have not done already. I sent them my show reel and was chosen to compete. Anyone in Australia can enter. The 2010 comp deadline will be some time in March. Keep an eye on the cutandpaste.com website for details.
Good luck!
Michelle
5.
Rico | July 4th, 2009 at 11:08 am
cool i found out about cutnpaste via mecho the same week n went to check it out. it was pretty mad but would have wanted to compete!
6.
Mia | July 4th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
Motion Designer seems like a fun occupation!
7.
Michelle | July 6th, 2009 at 10:30 am
Thanks Tim,
During the day I head up the creative team at a company that specialises in viral marketing for social media, called Small World. We are redoing our website at the mo, so I will post it here when we’re done! Some of our clients are The Australian Ballet, The State Library and the School Canteen Association (you can see some of their work in my show reel my clicking on my name at the top of this post).
In my own time I freelance and make short films and other fun stuff where I often collaborate with other people who are fun to work with. I am always on the lookout for people to team up with so if you have a cool idea for a film clip, t shirt, interactive elephant enclosure or whatever! feel free to drop me line at hello@michellemade.com.au
To give you an idea of a typical week, at the moment I am working on an identity for a Thai restaurant, a website for an artist management firm, a t shirt graphic for an indie band, and motion graphics for an online training interactive.
Apologies for the long post! hope that answers your question.
Michelle
8.
Jayden | July 12th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
Fun style you have there Michelle. Sounds like you have a fun job indeed compared to some other of us in the corporate world wondering ‘what if’ I had followed my passions abut now gettin tooo old and stubborn to bother changing path… Hopefully you win it in NY!
9.
Jimmy | July 15th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
Who’s your hero?
10.
Michelle | July 24th, 2009 at 10:46 am
Thanks Jayden! But you’re never too old!
Jimmy – I love Jon Burgerman’s characters, I must say they are a big inspiration to me. Check out his stuff – jonburgerman.com
I think I like them so much because they are so fluid and unpolished. Just nice ideas, and characters. Excellent use of colour too!
11.
mecho team | July 25th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
Nice one! mecho did a feature about Jon Burgerman wallpapers a while ago:
http://www.mecho.com.au/lifestyle/interior-exterior/wallpaper-jon-burgerman-designer/
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