Exploring My Future Career Directions in Animation

Thinking About Where I Want to Work in the Future

Where I Want to Work

If I could freely choose where to work in the future, I’d prefer to work in a coastal city in China.

In recent years, the animation industry in China has been growing fast. These cities, like Shanghai and Hangzhou, have a very active creative environment.

Of course, if remote work is possible, location wouldn’t matter that much for me. But coastal cities tend to have more animation-related cultural events, industry resources, and project opportunities. This is why these cities attract me the most.

China International Cartoon & Animation Festival

Areas of Industry I’m Interested In

Independent Animation Studios

I really like small independent studios like Fliiip Design. They create a wide range of projects, including customized visual solutions for a variety of media genres, such as TVC, music videos, movie titles/endings design, etc.

The roles involved are 2D animator, animation director, visual development, art director, 3D visual artist (C4D/Blender), 3D animator, and motion graphic designer. I like smaller teams because they are usually flexible, collaborative, and allow for more creative freedom.

Game Animation

Game animation is another area that I’m interested in. My initial thought of that actually came from the credits screens after finishing games, where “animation” often appears at the top of the credir list (which I found very amusing).

Later, I learned that a lot of studios tend to focus on 3D animation. But there are still a lot of games (especially indie games) still rely on strong 2D animation styles. For example, Dave the Diver and Hades from the past few years showed very impressive 2D animation. Since I really love games, this field feels like a natural fit for me.

Commercial Animation and IP-Based Work

In commercial industry, I prefer to join a studio that works on IPs I personally love. For example, HMCH, the studio behind The Legend of Hei, is one of my favourites.

I am most interested in pre-production roles such as character design and environment design. These two roles allow designers to feel more connected to the world of the sory and give me the joy of helping build a world from scratch.

Because of my architecture background, I have a solid understanding of spatial structure. And it’s helpful for background design I guess. I am also very interested in IP merchandise design. When I work on fan art projects, I always create a lot of goods. I enjoy exploring production techniques and I really wanna see how they can connect with animation.