May 14

Animation for the Creative Industries – Professional Practice

Formatting a CV

Creating a CV can be a stressful part of looking for a new job. It is the first impression a potential employer will have towards you. So how can you make a CV stand out, but also stay professional?

  • Layout: The layout needs to be easily navigated and organised. Your information should be neatly spaced out, in a thoughtful manner and not over congested as to make the CV look messy and unreadable.
  • Colour Palette and Typography: A CV can have any colour palette that reflects your personality as long as the colours do not clash or take away the readability of the text. The typography coincides with the colour palette and can reflect you as a person but should still be clear and readable. The colour of the font should also not clash with the page colour or any textbox colours and should stand out more over the colours used elsewhere. The text information is the most important bit, make sure they can see and read it.
  • Grammar: Make sure you proof read your CV for any spelling mistakes or misuse of punctuation – this is how you make sure it is to a professional standard as it shows attention to detail and that thought and care has went into creating your CV.

Generic CV templates may work for most career paths, but in the creative industry, you’ll want it to stand out and reflect you as the creative person you are! Looking for CV references many fall into the generic layout design and it was quite difficult in finding a fun and creatively designed one that wasn’t overwhelming with either design or information.

Examples of bad CV structure:

 

Although this CV is well laid out, the typography, textboxes and imagery used make it feel messy and very overwhelming. I also don’t think it is a good idea to use grading levels in software skills as it could put an employer off by seeing that you are not fully confident in the software they require you to use. Even if you are a little uncertain of a software, you will likely have a team around you for support and there are plenty of online tutorials to learn from.

This CV is a bit underwhelming in my opinion. It has potential to work and be fun but needs better thought in the layout and additional information added to it. The colour palette is a tad bland but it works well and all the areas you want to stand out, do just that.

This CV has potential to work. However, I believe that the hand written font is hard to read, but the colour palette and hand sketch style is really nice and works well.

Examples of good CV structure:

I personally love both of these CVs, as they portray the animators personality in a creative and fun way without taking away from good layout, colours, and typography. They are thoughtfully laid out in clear sections with readable font and all the relevant information provided.

My CV:

Over the years I have had several “boring” CV’s that would be considered working world standard. For this CV I wanted to create something beautiful to look at so that it would stand out but also be a reflection of me as a person. I had a few ideas in mind, I am very into gothic/horror but thought this would be too dull for a CV. I am also a massive lover of nature, and my favourite colour is green. Therefore, I decided to go along the root of a cottage core themed CV. I still kept my layout and typography more working world industry standard but try to make it a little less bland and more eye-catching. I also incorporated the logo PNG’s of software I am able to use as I felt this added more personality and key information.

 

 

Creating a cover email and researching into job listings:

What makes a good cover email?

A strong cover email will be tailored to highlight your skills that are suitable for the specific job role. It is a way to pitch yourself and you skills and also show your passion in the company itself.

  • It is always worth researching the company and making sure that you are well versed in their style and projects, it will also help if and when you attend the interview for said role.
  • It is always best to avoid any slang terminology and to keep the cover email as professional and direct to the point as possible.
  • Keep it well structured and make sure that grammar and punctuation is correct as it maintains that professional standard and also shows a better attention to detail.
  • Reference the requirements of the role and how your skills can contribute.
  • Explain that your skills and experience can resolve issues or achieve the finished outcome.
  • Reiterate your value to the employer before closing off the email.
  • Use appropriate and easy read typology.

 

 

Creating the cover email:

I actually found this task quite difficult as I was logically looking into the job listings to make sure I would be a qualified candidate for the role. Unfortunately, there is not many sources to find these jobs on, and more so, they are usually for Senior roles. I looked through Indeed, but there really wasn’t much in the way of Junior roles for any company with styles that fit my own. I began to look outside the box of just using Indeed and remembered that there was a careers section on Art Station. Although there are no jobs when searching under United Kingdom, I decided to check for remote work further afield. I came across a listing for a 3D environment artist for a company called Thekla, Inc. of who I have never heard of before but began researching into the company. From what I had found there isn’t much information on the company and even there social media seems quiet. However, I did come across a website that shows two of their games. I believe they may be a small indie company but their games are puzzle based and available for majority of consoles.

I really liked their style from watching game play on YouTube as it gave a nostalgic feel from when I was a child. So therefore I decided that this was the company I wished to write my cover email for.

My cover email:

 

What makes a good Showreel?

A showreel is a video edited to display your best work and demonstrates your skills. You should start and end strong, so save your absolute BEST work for those parts and then piece your other works in between. Its best to post as much variety as possible to show diversity and flexibility in skills. A showreel can be edited to tailor to a certain employer as it will appeal more by having 3D specific assets for a 3D role than presenting an employer with a 2D showreel. The showreel I created will be a mixture of both 2D, 3D and stop motion as I enjoy a variety of media in animation and feel I am fairly confident in all avenues.

I really enjoyed this showreel as they show their animation process by including the animatic and then show it again with the final product. I always enjoy watching process art and it’s something I would definitely want to do myself in future with my own showreel.

I also really enjoyed this one as it showed how to incorporate mixed media into a showreel which is what I will be doing with my own. I enjoy changing between 2D, 3D and stop motion as I feel I thrive off of the change and the challenges I face. The showreel above displays very different styles in a range of mediums and they keep it engaging and in time with the music.

My Showreel:

I was surprised how much I enjoyed composing this. I used CapCut and the features allowed me to edit very similar to After effects so I didn’t struggle in navigating the software. I don’t have a lot of confidence in my work, so I did really struggle choosing which is my “best” pieces. Overall, I just had fun and chose things that made me happy. My choice of audio is a reflection of myself, I like to keep things light hearted and comical, so I felt there was no better sound than one used in Austin Powers movies. I noticed that it had good beat and rhythm changes so I tried my best to transition my animations in these sections.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Posted May 14, 2025 by kirkpatrick-s11 in category Animation for the Creative Industries

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