Sam Garner – Studio Manager/Senior Artworker

finally

It’s been a long time coming but I’ve finally got myself a full time job. I took a place as a Creative Artworker at Totem, where I’ve been freelancing for a month or 2 previously. It’s been great so far, I couldn’t ask for a nicer bunch to work with. The atmosphere is so relaxed and the people are great. It’s very much a hands-on role. I now have to do photography as well as all the other things I’ve had to do before. There’s ben aq lot of opportunity to do some retouching and hopefully I’ll get a chance to work on some web stuff. I’ve got a good mentor in all things web here, so if I want to get involved there is some really good people here to help.

Anyway, back to work

Sam

Just thought I’d upload another fun little job that I’ve been doing down at Walsh Bay. Its an internal campaign A1 poster for DHL sales reps, with prizes for most sales, best teams etc. Its the first time I’ve done anything involving the iPad, which is a nice little prize wouldn’t you say. Anyway here’s the poster:

1 of 2 internal campaign posters for DHL

As you can see it contains an iPad as the hero shot with a comped together image of a holidaying sales rep. head body and legs all coming form different sources, with a selection of give aways placed  in his box. Notice the iPhone style call out boxes, they work really well.

I really enjoyed working on this when I finally got the concept that was most pleasing for us all. It’s still on the go so there may be changes before the final posters are printed. Lets see.

Sam

As promised here is the retouching job that I was working on the other day. The owls head on a mans body. You don’t need to know the details, just that it’s part of a campaign with animals heads on peoples bodies.

Original Images

Here are the 2 starter points for the final image. Both stock shots, the owl shot actually came from http://www.lifeonwhite.com/ which. if you are after wildlife photos shot on a white background it’s worth a look.

Owl Man

This is the final comp. The client was really happy, and so was I. It turned out alright. The hardest thing was trying to give an owl a neck. By their nature they don’t really have necks so I had to create one for him.

More retouching and artwork  to follow

Sam

Hopefully now I can post from my iPod to my blog. If. You are reading
this then it works.

Any way, I’ve been working at a small agency down in Walsh Bay for the
last few days and having a really good time with it. They’ve trusted
me to just take on projects and just run with them, which is great.
Having a bit more freedom as a freelancer is always a good thing. I’m
back there next week comping an owls head onto a mans body. I’ll put
it up here when it’s finished so that you can see it. Hopefully it
will look good. Fingers crossed.

Sam

size does matter

I’m at what you could call a small agency today. I’m at Totem down in Walsh bay. You know, I think that the smaller agencies should get more recognition. Mainly because they are in my opinion nicer places to work. The atmosphere always seems to be relaxed, you get to meet everybody as you walk in, and you don’t have to remember about 30 names in 10 seconds flat.

I’ve been to a couple of smaller agencies over the last few months and I like them. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not having a go at the bigger agencies, I’ve had some nice times with them to, but the intimacy of the smaller work place makes for a friendlier welcome, especially if you are freelancing and are in and out of these places within a few days.

communication

The way that you can communicate in a small agency is also good. You can just yell across the room if you have a question. Maybe yell is too much of a strong word, but you know what I’m saying. And people don’t mind having conversations across a few desks. You don’t have to get up walk around till you find a familiar face to ask a question just to find out that you are in fact talking to the wrong person, as has happened to me before.

hits from the 80’s

Music is another thing which smaller agencies do better, except for some radio players. There is only so many times you can here the current No.1 in 1 day!!! There is usually somebody in the studio with a varied music collection who puts on itunes and it sets the background ambiance up quite nicely. Bigger studios, mainly headphones only, such a shame. Not is it every day you can listen to hits from the 80’s next to punk, pop, new wave and even the odd newer song.

still looking for that perfect place/life’s tough

I’m not saying that all big studios are bad to work in, I’ve been in and seen some really nice ones. But, I’d rather work in a smaller more intimate one, where you get to interact with other members of the team, more than a huge production line of a studio, where its just about clearing your desk. Just because client demand is high and workloads getting bigger, the need for creative thinking and technical excellence shouldn’t take a back seat and should still take pride of place in any studio.

Well after all that I better wrap it up. I’m still looking for that perfect studio to work in or even better a studio to run. Freelance is good when the works in, but on the quiet times, with a mortgage to pay and a family to feed, its gets tough.

Sam

I had a good time working with Loud up in North Sydney. They were a really good bunch, they eased me into the Australian workplace nice and easy. They were my first placemenet since landing at Christmas and I don’t think that I could ask for a better place to start. If they ever need any help in the studio I’ll be more than happy to go back and help out for a bit.

Anyway here are a few examples of the kind of work that I was working on with them.

1 of 2 Brut Code# Adshels

This Adshel nearly didn’t get released as the client got cold feet just before release, but a solution was reached without much creative change. As I left it should have been going out the door.

Optus Pre-Paid Vietnamese press ad

Working in another language is hard enough, especially if its Vietnamese. I’m going to have to get used to it. No more European Language work, and I thought German was a hard language to type set!!!

Thats just a few of the things that I’ve been working on. I’ll add more when I get more work

Sam