Lead­ing female ani­ma­tors OK Motion Club on how to per­fect your portfolio

In The OFFF Dis­patch we’ve part­nered with Adobe to report back from OFFF Barcelona, one of the world’s largest show­cas­es of cre­ativ­i­ty, art and dig­i­tal design. Here, ani­ma­tors Aman­da Schrem­beck and Lin­da McNeil share their best cre­ative advice.

OK Motion Club cre­ates eye-pop­ping ani­ma­tion full of colour, ener­gy and life for some of the world’s biggest brands.

Co-found­ed by Aman­da Schrem­beck and Lin­da McNeil, OK Motion Club is an Atlanta-based, women-run stu­dio, where cre­at­ing unpar­al­leled cre­ative work and giv­ing back go hand-in-hand.

Inclu­siv­i­ty and open­ing doors for oth­ers is a core pil­lar of OK Motion Club’s mis­sion. Aman­da and Lin­da host talks, work­shops and run ini­tia­tives, such as Ladies, Wine & Design, to inspire, empow­er and share skills with women and non-bina­ry peo­ple in the cre­ative industries.

This pas­sion for sup­port­ing oth­ers is also a core val­ue of OFFF Barcelona, which brought togeth­er inno­v­a­tive pro­fes­sion­als in the cre­ative and design indus­tries for three days of mas­ter­class­es, talks, and work­shops from 5 – 7 May.

Adobe, OFFF’s main part­ner, will be cre­at­ing a space for these con­ver­sa­tions through the Adobe Cre­ativ­i­ty Hub, where atten­dees will hear from the best design­ers in the field and learn about Adobe’s lat­est cut­ting-edge tools aimed at sup­port­ing cre­ators of all kinds.

Here, Aman­da and Lin­da dis­cuss why focussing on the work you real­ly want to do is the secret to cre­at­ing a win­ning portfolio.

What inter­ests you most about OFFF? Why is it an essen­tial vis­it for cre­atives like yourselves?

Aman­da: They do such a great job pulling a vari­ety of tal­ent, as well as the small­er acti­va­tions like Adobe Live Ses­sions and pan­el dis­cus­sions to spot­light up-and-com­ing artists. Not to men­tion that it’s host­ed in Barcelona; an incred­i­ble city that is already a hub for art and creativity.

Tell us about what you’ll be doing at OFFF and why you want­ed to take part in the Adobe Port­fo­lio Reviews?

Lin­da: We’ll be giv­ing a talk at OFFF on how we built our stu­dio, as well as tak­ing part in a dis­cus­sion called Women at Work by Hey, about female cre­atives in our indus­try. We’ll also be tak­ing part in the Adobe Port­fo­lio Reviews, which is impor­tant to us because it relates to our core val­ues of want­i­ng to help indi­vid­u­als break into the industry.

Do you remem­ber the first time you had to deliv­er a port­fo­lio for review? What did you learn from the experience?

Lin­da: I remem­ber hav­ing a port­fo­lio review after col­lege with a stu­dio in Atlanta. They cri­tiqued the hell out of my work. But to be fair, they gave me a lot of help­ful advice. My port­fo­lio at the time looked like any oth­er col­lege student’s. I need­ed to show­case work that spoke to me and the work I want­ed to do.

How did you break into the cre­ative indus­try? And how did your port­fo­lio play a role in that?

Aman­da: I went to a uni­ver­si­ty for a fine arts degree in print­mak­ing. So I knew that I want­ed to pur­sue a career in art after school. But because of [print­mak­ing] being such a hard indus­try to make a suc­cess­ful career in, I end­ed up mov­ing into graph­ic design and then lat­er animation.

I actu­al­ly made up a fake port­fo­lio to be able to land that first graph­ic design gig – and by fake, I mean none of the work inside was real life projects from clients. I just came up with ran­dom prompts in order to prove I could do the work. My port­fo­lio was cru­cial to me land­ing that job. You just have to be will­ing to adjust your port­fo­lio and add work rel­e­vant to what­ev­er the role is.

What are your top tips for cre­at­ing the ide­al port­fo­lio? What are the most impor­tant things to con­sid­er? And what are the major pit­falls to avoid?

Lin­da: Only share the type of work that you want to work on. If you don’t have that expe­ri­ence, cre­ate fake projects sim­i­lar to the work you want to do. Avoid putting in projects that you didn’t like work­ing on, because oth­er­wise you’ll be get­ting more of that kind of work.

Aman­da: It’s always good to adjust your port­fo­lio for what­ev­er role you’re apply­ing to; unfor­tu­nate­ly it’s not one-size-fits-all. You might need to add or remove work to bet­ter cater to that client.

Is there a par­tic­u­lar piece of advice you have received that had a huge impact on you?

Aman­da: I had an old boss tell me to focus on ​‘doing only the work that you can do.’ I’m some­one who tends to take on too much work and tell myself that I can han­dle every­thing. But that line res­onat­ed with me: I should focus on my strengths and let oth­er peo­ple help me with the rest, so I have more head­space to cre­ate my best work.

What is the one thing you think most impor­tant to help you stay at the top of your cre­ative game?

Lin­da: I think find­ing inspi­ra­tion from mul­ti­ple sources can help keep your cre­ative momen­tum high. It could be from see­ing live music, going to an art muse­um, or just going for a walk in your neigh­bour­hood. Also, remem­ber to take time off. You’ll get burnt out if you work too much, so con­sid­er tak­ing breaks as part of the process.

How do you and your team approach a new project? Tell us a bit about how your team works.

Aman­da: There isn’t one way we approach projects because every project scope and client request is dif­fer­ent. It depends on the client’s needs and wants, as far as style goes. Then we con­sid­er the avail­abil­i­ty between the two of us. Some­times we just trade off who leads based on who led the pre­vi­ous project. But some­times one of us is bet­ter suit­ed, depend­ing on our dif­fer­ent expertise.

How do you use Adobe prod­ucts in your work?

Lin­da: We use all the Adobe prod­ucts but we tend to use After Effects and Pho­to­shop the most. We usu­al­ly start out by sketch­ing or just writ­ing down a few key notes before we jump into a project.

Tell us about how Adobe prod­ucts have been part of your cre­ative journey?

Aman­da: Both Lin­da and I are self-taught in ani­ma­tion. Adobe Cre­ative Cloud makes it real­ly easy to try out new pro­grams, like After Effects or Ani­mate, to just see what you can cre­ate. You nev­er know, it could lead to a whole new career!

What excites and inspires you about Atlanta, the city you live and work in?

Lin­da: Atlanta often gets over­looked next to US cities like New York or Los Ange­les, which I feel like puts Atlanta in a unique posi­tion to thrive in a way unlike oth­er major cities. There’s a lot of room to grow in Atlanta and the cre­ative com­mu­ni­ty here is incred­i­bly sup­port­ive. It’s also cul­tur­al­ly diverse and open for col­lab­o­ra­tion. There are mul­ti­ple cre­ative avenues to find inspi­ra­tion in Atlanta, from the ever-grow­ing music scene to artist col­lec­tives and organisations.

Fol­low along for more sto­ries from The OFFF Dis­patch and learn more about OFFF Barcelona at offf.barcelona

Watch Adobe Live on-demand, which took place at OFFF from 5 – 7 May, and check out what’s new in Adobe Cre­ative Cloud.