Meet Sheida Karamzadeh

Today we’d like to introduce you to Sheida Karamzadeh.

Sheida, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I am a motion designer and animator. But if you ask how I ended up here and why I chose to be a designer/animator, I’m not sure if I can answer that as there have been lots of ups and downs and maybe so many reasons behind it!

Growing up, I wasn’t really a big fan of painting, drawing or anything related to what I am doing now because of my Palmar Hyperhidrosis condition (sweaty palms). My sister though has been very good at painting. I grew up watching her as I was a big fan of her paintings. After middle school, I decided to go to Arts and Crafts high school instead of math, biology, etc. Art school looked a lot more exciting and fun compared to others and I think that decision was the starting point of where I am today.

Of course, it was not all fun as it seemed at the beginning and I struggled a lot trying to learn how to draw, paint or how to take a photo with an analogue camera and take it to the lab and turn it into a photograph. After highschool, I went to Tehran University to study graphic design. During that time, I learned about independent animators and their works. Their skills, creativity and the way they chose to communicate with others was very fascinating. I found books about animation history and its techniques and started to learn more about what “animation” actually means.

Around the same time, I started to work on a stop motion animation with one of my friends which was our very first step into the crazy world of Animation, consequently it was more of a trial and error and completely a DIY project. Although working on that stop motion animation was pretty much sweat and blood for us and we spent too much time on it, but through that I learned a lot about animation and also got admission in Animation from SCAD.

That was the time when I packed my stuff and moved to the US (September 2014). Like other international students I went through a lot and I struggled a good deal trying to adapt to the new environment, new culture and learn how to live alone, apart from my family and make sure to not to mess everything up!

While studying at SCAD, I learned about motion graphic design and I tried to take as much as classes I could from this major as my elective courses to make myself more familiar with it. I really enjoyed the classes and the projects because Motion Design is animation combined with graphic design in a very diverse manner. After finishing school, I spent one more year in Savannah and worked on multiple projects as a freelancer and last June, I moved to LA and started to work with Netflix. Also, I had a chance to work as a freelancer with a few more Studios such as Method Studio LA.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Well, of course it has not been a smooth road and it never will be. I have struggled a lot throughout This way but the hardest one for me was moving out from home/country; Studying a master’s degree is not easy by itself. Adding to those, learning a new language, living in a totally new habitat, adapting to new rules, finding a place in the society and many more has been the biggest struggle for me so far.

We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
As a motion graphic and graphic designer, my specialty is mostly on 2d hand drawn animation. My long time passion as well as my education helps me a lot to achieve the outputs and style I want. But I have always tried to expand my knowledge; even though my specialty is hand drawn animation but I am also comfortable with computer generated animation which allows me to combine both for many of the projects that I work on.

Flexibility, friendly approach and being able to work with many different departments on different projects are things that I am proud of the most. I believe one of the important personalities that I have is that I look at every project as a creative assignment, not just as a job to do to make money. So with every new project, I try to come up with new ideas and creative solutions in order to produce a result that is both useful and satisfying.

Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
The first thing that comes to my mind is patience; creating animation is very time-consuming. Sometimes you need to work days and weeks in order to create just 5 seconds of animation. Hence, being patient and perseverance is a very important characteristic if you are an animator or motion designer. Staying up to date and learning new trends is another important factor in this field. These days if you want to survive in this industry and keep your clients, you need to be aware of the new styles and learn how to implement them into your works.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://sheidakaramzadeh.com/
• Phone: 9123142108
• Email: karamzadehsheida@gmail.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sheidakaramzadeh/
• Other: https://vimeo.com/user51117280

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