Month: June 2025

The first thing after graduation in my plans is to gather all the work I have and choose the best sequences I have and refine or finish them and also animate new ones so I can put it together as a portfolio/reel. 

I have drafts of CV, resume, cover letter, all versions of documents employers state they are looking for upon application. I believe I can still improve some of them, for example I am not sure if my CV sounds/looks professional yet.

Here is my latest draft: 

I find it challenging to understand sometimes exactly what my application is missing that makes it not good enough yet as I have not gotten any positive responses so far. However, I am open to advice and learning more about the job hunting process and try to remind myself that it just takes time and skill improvement.

Some specific roles I am interested in and on the look out for include: Storyboard Artist, Layout Artist, 2D Animator, Illustrator and almost any pre production role really. A recent opportunity I am applying to is the Supernova Design internship that Shaun let us know about through Moodle. I took my time exploring their website and made notes of what type of animation they do and how it stands out to me, key company values that I figured out and last but not least, I tried to gain clarity on what candidate they are looking for exactly based on the description. And this is more or less the way I prepare when applying for jobs. (I have not yet applied to that many as I was hoping my final project submission would have some content that I could use for my reel.)

There is something about storyboarding that my brain enjoys greatly! I recently visited an “Arcane” exhibition and was pleasantly surprised to see a lot of boards and thumbnails some of which were in physical mediums like pen or pencil! That was so exciting to look at as I am a big fan of traditional mediums.

It was insightful to follow through the artists’ process and have an authentic behind the scenes view to such a popular project. It seemed they truly had the artistic and painterly feel of the series as a priority even in all the way back in pre-production.

Another source of inspiration and information when talking about visual storytelling planning and composition is the book: “Framed Ink” by Marcos Mateu-Mestre. I find the advice in this book is clear and easy to follow while still being extensive. It has to be one of my favourite “art learning” books!

Storyboard Artist is definitely a potential role that I am interested in and am actively looking out for job opportunities for.

I recently volunteered to be a tester for Kinda Studios’ recent project called “Your inner Symphony”. (Kinda Studios is a women-led neuroscience studio and lab based in London.)

“Your inner symphony” is now open to the public and available to experience as a part of the Barbican’s new exhibition ’Feel the sound’ (22 May-31 Aug 2025). It is an immersive installation that “blends neuroscience and design and uncovers the unseen connection between music, emotion and the body’s physiological response”. 

The project is in collaboration with Nexus studios as they provide the animation and all visual elements.

What was asked of me as a volunteer tester was to use the installation prototypes multiple times and provide feedback on the overall user experience, ease of use, understanding, readability. 

This was a first attempt at such activity for me, however I found it was enjoyable and I felt I was good at it. I managed to spot and describe in detail certain aspects of the experience I felt might be communicated to the user better or just simply differently. I believe I provided valuable feedback and a lot of it, in fact, I think much more than they expected (haha). It felt so natural the information I collected from the tests was so clearly identify-able in my head and I was able to communicate it well to them as well.

This volunteering opportunity was a chance for me to look into another use of animation and learn about the mechanics of it and briefly about the pipeline.

It reminded me of a “Game Jam” festival in Sofia, Bulgaria I attended back in 2019, where i attended talks on UX/UI testing. It peaked my interest even back then but I somehow got distracted with other matters and simply forgot all about it until now. I find the process of sharing my personal experience and registering and pointing out ways to make a product work better comes somewhat naturally to me as I am incredibly detail oriented and it seems my brain is good with patterns. 

With all that being said, I believe this is a career path I am interested in looking into further. As it is a rather new idea for me my research and knowledge on the topic is yet to become more extensive.