Here I’m Back  with yet another Interview  , this time with former Hyper Island student Linus Lundin … a freelance motion designer from Stockholm , Sweden.

How did you discover you wanted to be a motion graphics designer?

I was knocking about on a swedish graphics forum when I stumbled upon someones showreel. At the time I was mainly doing illustration and was really impressed by this new art form. I started reading about it and things lead me to Hyper Island, which I attended some years later. When I got there it was like heaven somehow =) I just loved the people and the creative atmosphere. I knew nothing at all (except for photoshop and illustrator), but I was hooked right away and did my best to learn and develop.

How did you got your first job ?

I did some internal video for a random company together with Fredrik Ekholm. We we’re living together in Amsterdam with a bunch of other great people from Hyper Island. The job was nothing spectacular at all, but it was some kind of turning point for me. Today we’re sitting next to each other in our freelance office still working together on some projects. Fredrik is a great guy. I really learned a lot from him.

Tell us more about your freelancing company?What software do you use?

I spend most of my days at our freelance office in Stockholm. It’s like a sandpit for big kids. People bring their toys, and we play. Sometimes alone, sometimes together. It happens that someone digs up a cats shit, but we’re there together and help out each other when times are though. It’s a great place to be around and there’s always something happening. My main tools are Cinema 4D, After Effects and my Canon 550D. I also have a Glidetrack that helped me out a lot.

How do you keep your ideas staying fresh?

I try to always do better than the last project, and I have pretty high expectations on myself. I guess that is what makes me develop my work visually, but I still have a lot to learn in terms of storytelling and building ideas. Right now I’m working on improving my workflow in the early stages and it’s getting better.. before I just started working and let things grow together. It’s not a winning technique, haha. I don’t consider myself as someone with new mind blowing ideas, but more like someone that focuses on good design and animation.

Seeing how much motion graphics and music are tied together, howimportant is it for a motion graphic designer to have a sense oftiming and rhythm?

I play a bunch of instruments in my spare time, but I don’t think that makes my work better. When I tackle a project I sometimes think of a feeling that I got from some movie or song and it usually helps a lot to get the right mind set.

Of all your projects, which is most challenging for you and why?

Most of the projects has their own challenge. Sometimes it’s technical issues, sometimes it’s dealing with clients, but most often it tends to be time. I don’t know why but there always seem to be a very tight deadline for everything exciting. In my last project “Mackmyra - Extra Rök”, that I did together with Fredrik Ekholm, we only had about a week to deliver a final to the client. Except for very long hours and hard work, the challenge was to nail everything on the first try (people that render stuff knows how easy it is to fuck something up). We didn’t have time to do even the smallest mistake, so we were super organized and always triple checked our renders before leaving the office. As a freelancer I have a lot of stressful times, but it’s always nice to think of those challenges as something that will help me develop and be even better at what I do. The next project I’ll be working on will demand a lot of character animation I’ve never done before, so that’s a huge challenge, but also a great opportunity to get some pressure to learn it and nail it.

Do you use any 3rd party plugins? Are there any plugins you would recommend?

Immigration is a great script for AE that makes it detect image sequences when importing renders. A simple thing, and I could totally live with out it but it just makes things a lot faster. You could get it for free at www.aescripts.com.
Technicolors Cinestyle is also a very cool plug, if you could call it that. It’s a custom picture style for the canon cameras that makes the footage super flat. I don’t know all the technical aspects behind it but it just helps to keep as much info as possible in your footage before going in to post, and it’s also free!
This summer I got a copy of DE:noise that actually saved us the money from renting another camera. The footage we had were so grainy so it couldn’t be used. This plug saved a lot of time and money that time. Great piece of software! It’s a couple of dollars but it’s really worth it.

what are your main source of inspiration?

This is a question that I get sometimes, and I always have a hard time answering it. I guess it comes from all the things in my life, I just can’t put my finger on it. Everything that makes me smile, or impresses me or leaves a trail in my mind somehow gives me roots to new ideas. I also like to imitate voices and personalities, which also gives me inspiration. I’d like to be a lot better of character animation to use all of that info, and someday I will.

If you could have a dream job , what would it be?

I already have that job =) At least for now. Maybe later I’ll get tired of this and try to develop further in to something, but for now it’s weeeeee!If you mean a dream project, I no longer think that exists. Before I always wanted to do something for MTV (I guess everyone that gets in to motion design wants that?). Of course it would still be super cool cause they allow a lot of sick things on there, but now I try to think of all projects as dream projects. It’s up to me to make it a dream project. I just wanna have fun doing it and be able to develop my skills.

Anyone you’d like to give thanks or show appreciation to?

I wouldn’t be doing this right now if it wasn’t for Hyper Island and all the great people I got to know and learned from. So thank you guys! ♥

Any tips for newcomers? 

If you love what you do it’s not gonna be a problem. Also check out Hyper Island. It’s a great place to start at.

Want to know more about Linus , visit here http://www.linuslundin.se/