Over the summers, I tried to apply for multiple short-term/internship roles to understand the industry requirement and how can I make myself more visible. I started by researching what are the different roles and shortlisting the ones that I feel would fit me better.

One of the videos that I found useful was by RobynO on youtube wherein she has explained roles like VFX Artists Motion Graphics Artists, Animation Scriptwriter – Concept Artists Character Designers Storyboard Artists Animatic Artists/ Editors PreVis Artists 3D Modellers, Sculptors and Asset or Prop creators Riggers Texture Artists Lighting Artists Animation Director 3D Generalist etc.

After deep diving into these multiple roles and discussing them further with my mentor Valeria, I realized that I also want to put the experience I have so far in the industry to good use. In the past, I have worked with designers and developers for marketing purposes and feel that I would want to move to the animation and designing side of marketing and advertising perhaps. I want to use almost four years of experience to work.

I have been able to build up a lot of soft skills and have also acquired managerial and team management and time management skills which I feel would be an add-on. Additionally, I am not averse to the idea of working in the corporate sector in a creative role. I have been lucky to work with great companies in my career who have given creative space to their employees and that is something I appreciate.

I also spoke to some designers and animators from my first job ever to understand how their career graphs progressed in the corporate sector. The discussion that followed was mainly around the financial and creative value of it all. One thing that one of them mentioned was, “A lot of upcoming startups are exploring creative ways of putting their content out there and animators will climb the ladder quickly in the next few years.” She also mentioned that companies want to move away from templatized animation culture in marketing so as to stand out and make their content more engrossing.

We immediately moved on to discuss different companies that are using illustration and animation differently and creatively. One such company is Paperboat.

Paper Boat is a brand of traditional Indian beverages and foods produced and marketed by Hector Beverages, which is headquartered in Bengaluru, India. Paper Boat was launched by Hector Beverages in August 2013.

I feel that the Indian audience is very emotionally driven and it also affects their consumer behaviour Paperboat struck the right chords by launching a campaign purely based on nostalgia and childhood. They came up with beautiful illustrations and short animated pieces for the same. Those pieces were also heavily influenced by one of the most famous cartoonists RK Laxman’s style of drawing.

They later also made their own short film called Hope the boat. It was a fresh change from the regular animations we see in the corporate sector which proved to be successful. Ever since then some other companies have also tried to jump on the bandwagon and it has only grown bigger!