Lage Lind — Creatiview

Lage Lind is a freelance illustrator and animator based in Stockholm.

Curator’s note: It’s hard not to be drawn in by Lage’s work. Today, striking design is everywhere you look. It’s more accessible than ever and yet, his work still stands out. Lage implements a beautiful blend of delicate but confident line strokes, loud colour palettes and satisfyingly smooth transitions. This time, we hear his fascinatingly frank tale, retelling the twists and turns on his journey towards becoming an accomplished freelancer. A story that will be reassuringly familiar to many, whilst concluding with some poignant but uplifting takeaways. Settle in and enjoy.

*An example of one of Lage’s ‘doodles’.*

I think I owe my career to piracy. That’s where it all started. Well, at least it’s what allowed the seed to grow. Like many others growing up in the 90s, my first contact with filmmaking was through some Dad’s DV-cam and a bootleg version of premiere straight off Kazaa/DC++. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you should pirate your programs, but when you’re a kid with 20 EUR allowance, you’re gonna spend them on skateboards and fisheye lenses - and that’s exactly what I did.

Skateboarding probably had the biggest influence on me growing up and we were a tight group of friends who were skateboarding almost every day. I was not the most avid skateboarder in the group, so naturally I found myself behind the camera more than in front of it. But I didn’t mind. In time, I found it more enjoyable than skateboarding itself.

We started out simple, doing edits of us grinding away at the loading dock behind the towns gas station to the tunes of Jack Johnson. But with the release of films like Girl Skateboards “Yeah Right!” and later Lakai’s “Fully Flared”, with all its effects and green screen shots, we realised we needed to step things up.

Add After Effects to the download queue.

*From the ‘Desolate’ series for R.A.R.E Art Lab.*

Like almost everyone who started using After Effects some time in the mid 2000s, Andrew Kramer and VideoCopilot were my guiding star. After that, every edit I did probably had more 2.5D texts and superimposed explosions than actual skateboarding. Around that time, I started to realise that I wanted to build a career in the creative industry. Tough back then, I didn’t really think of motion design as something you could do fulltime, so I applied to a design programme at a school called Hyper Island. While I was at the school for a final interview, we were told that they had just started a programme called “Motion Design Artist” and told us that if we wanted, we could apply to that as well. Why not, I thought, so I did.

The competition was tough at the programme I originally wanted. I had failed that final interview. But, since I signed up for their brand new Motion Design course, they were happy to offer me a spot as the very first motion design student.

I said no thanks.

*More from the ‘Desolate’ series for R.A.R.E Art Lab.*

By the time the application process was over, I had landed a job in one of Sweden’s many mountain resorts. So I spent a couple of years snowboarding and drinking way too much six days a week. While my time there had little impact on how I became an animator, it had a bigger impact on my life in general. It’s where I met my future wife.

But you’re not interested in that, so back to the topic at hand. While I wasn’t ready to take the plunge the first time around, the motion design programme had peaked my interest. So I decided to apply again. I got in.

Some of you might have heard of Hyper Island, it has produced some of the best animators coming out of Sweden, but it’s not for everyone. There are no teachers or grades and most of the courses and assignments are solved by guesswork, help from fellow students and fast-forwarding tutorials on YouTube. It can be a painful learning experience, but at the same time, it teaches you that just about everything can be solved with a bit of elbow grease and massive amounts of googling, something I found very valuable later in my career.

*A still from an animation to promote the opening of ‘Scandwich’. A new restaurant in Midsommarkransen, Stockholm.*

Soon after, I landed an internship at a mid-sized creative agency in Stockholm. When I got there I was excited to meet my supervisor, the sensei of animation who would hold my hand and teach me all the tricks and elevate me from a student to a professional.

The friendly CD met me at the door and I was introduced to the team; editors, project managers, sound technicians… but no motion designer. Turned out, I was the only animator there.

This was a double-edged sword. While I basically had to become a professional animator right then and there - I had no one to teach me how to be just that. But I managed to survive and they seemed to like what I was doing, so they hired me after my three-month internship came to an end. I was so happy to get a real, full time job doing what I had actually studied, something I’ve never had before. But, once the novelty of actually getting paid to animate had worn off, I quickly fell in to the agency grind.

The team I was a part of sat under the wing of a larger umbrella company. While the people there were great, the stuff we produced was often rushed and most of the time, garbage. It was a very profit oriented place. Animation and design that was once my passion was worn down by bad budgets and rushed timelines, and it quickly turned in to just a job. As the years went by, I lost touch with the industry. This is a really shitty place to end up at and it’s hard to get out of. Everyone around me was stuck in the same grind and you start thinking in the same way creatively. I was constantly gravitating toward my own comfort zone, and as we all know, it’s a nice and cosy place but nothing ever grows there. I lost a lot of confidence in my work and felt that I wasn’t good enough, that everyone else was right and I was wrong in the way I approached things. This is a sure-fire way to losing the originality in your work.

*Another still from an animation to promote the opening of ‘Scandwich’. A new restaurant in Midsommarkransen, Stockholm.*

The thing is, as much as I like to blame the place I worked, most of it’s on me. I just had to realise that.

For me, the wake up call was listening to the Animalators podcast featuring my old classmate Linn Fritz (an amazing artist and animator btw) and her journey from working at a mid-sized agency in Stockholm, kind of like where I was at, to working at Cub in London and on towards Buck in Sydney. It really was an eye opener for me that there is a way out.

I realised the importance of staying in touch with the industry and meeting other motion designers, watching all the amazing stuff that people create and experiencing new things. I reached out to Linn to talk a bit more about her journey, and a tiny spark lit my old passion. I started following the industry leaders, listening to podcasts with interviews and reading magazines. I got a wider perspective and it fuelled the old flame I had once more. I realised that I needed change, and I came to the conclusion that the best thing I could do for my career and me was to go freelance. So I handed in my four-week notice and took the plunge. It was scary as hell at first, but it turned out to be the best decision I ever made.

Being a freelancer meant I had so much more time and energy to focus on my own things and way more control over what kind of projects I wanted to do. Since most of what I had in my portfolio was low budget stuff with a handful of gems, I needed some better work to showcase. I scraped together a decent enough portfolio to get me the same level of jobs I had done before - but for much better pay. I took the extra cash and turned it in to time I could work on personal projects and pro bono stuff for friends, where I basically traded money for creative freedom. Slowly my portfolio grew with things that I was actually proud of, and so did my confidence. I got to the point where i was getting contacted to do things just because they liked MY style and how I did things, and that really is a privileged spot to be in.

*Chapter dividers in print material for PTK.*

Now, I still do a heck of a lot of bread and butter jobs that are boring just to pay the bills, and sometimes I still feel like this is just a job, but I’ve come to realise that whenever this is happening, I’ve spent to much time on the boring stuff and I always make sure to take some time off for personal projects and to learn new things.

There are so many things that can hold you down as a designer and animator. Imposter syndrome, anxiety about not being good enough and losing your way in a maze of thoughtless work, but most of the time, all that is in your head. Luckily, that’s something we all have control over.

Three years ago, I never would have thought someone would ask me to write about my story, and had I stayed at the same place, it probably wouldn't have happened. But just like Linn’s story helped me get out of a bad place in my career, I hope that this article can help someone else. And who knows, maybe in a few years, you’ll be doing the same.

You can view more of Lage’s fantastic portfolio over at lagelnd.com. Go check it out!