What I am, what I am not

Contrary to what may be expected of me in my job, I am not the type of artist/designer who can come up with an idea or create some sort of graphics without inspiration and without the end product in mind. Early in my job, I somehow managed to force myself to create a whole bunch of meaningless backgrounds for use on any show, and I still have those backgrounds but they don't really do anything for me and they don't really add much to the shows that they end up in. I occasionally get credit for making particularly exciting and special graphics, but what is often not realized, I inevitably made those graphics with that particular show and particular underlying audio in mind.

I have come to see the creation of graphics or creation of art in much the same way I expect inventors came up with their inventions. First there was a need or idea for the invention. I can't imagine it came from the emptiness of nothing, rather I think of most inventions as fulfilling a particular need or some desire. In much the same way, I don't believe in creating motion graphics for a show without knowing a little something about the show first. If fantastic graphics are required, then I require some things as well: answers to certain questions for the parties involved about the preconceived notions for how said graphics will look and feel to an identified audience. I also need to know the interested party's definition of "spectacular" or "fantastic" or whatever adjective is used to describe these graphics I am to make. How can I succeed without a definition for success?

With that in mind, I wonder if there are any artists out there who can essentially work in a vacuum. Are there some incredibly gifted people out there who never need google images or vimeo's groups? Yes, occasionally, I will come up with an idea that is completely unrelated to any project I am currently working on and that may get used for a future project, but once again, that future project must have a need for that graphic.

I suppose you could say that I don't believe in graphics for graphic's sake. Perhaps that's because I've seen productions where the graphics get in the way and actually distract from the overall end product.

In seeking inspiration, I went to one of my trusty sources, a group on vimeo for motion graphic artists. There I found another fantastic animation called FLUX by candas sisman and after watching this beautiful thing, I read the description below. Lo and behold, this artist got inspiration from somewhere too (from İlhan Koman). No vacuum here.


F L U X from candas sisman on Vimeo.

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