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Meet Ulrike Kerber of Viva Design in Santa Barbara

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Ulrike Kerber.

Ulrike, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I started in Germany as a graphic designer with a master’s degree in Communication Design. After completing my studies, I had the chance to go on a scholarship to New York City for a year, where I worked in an ad agency designing music promotional materials for clients like the Boston philharmonic orchestra and John Cage. My first amazing job opportunity was with a record company where we designed party and techno music CDs, an Unplugged cd for Eric Clapton, classic recordings for the Deutsche Grammophone and Decca. This was a fun company to work for, with a private chef, excellent food and i even negotiated a four day week.

At the German TV station Sat 1, I learned to animate graphics for tv shows. The computer was called Henry and Hal (Quantel) and it was a special skill, very useful at that time. It allowed me to come to the US and offer the skill to post-production agencies and TV networks. I worked for a while at tv networks like E! Tv, CBS and ABC and design agencies such as Pittard Sullivan and Fuel. It felt like a special time in TV graphics with a lot of opportunities and fun. With enough experience, I opened my own design shop Viva Design, providing show/promo packages and re-brands.

It led me to projects like rebrands for showtime, music award Packages for BET, Gameshow Network, Cosmopolitan TV, the Foodnetwork, and many more. We animated graphic packages, sizzle reels and upfronts. By that time, I worked with a creative team of 5-10 artists using Adobe aftereffects. We shot with film, red camera, digital… anything you can think of. Today, I am offering branding and short format content, mainly animated videos for social media. I enjoy helping others to find out how they want to be digitally represented, what their core message is, and how they can achieve a better, more meaningful connection with their audience.

I create videos for gen z platform SoulPancake, a company founded by Rainn Wilson. The first series, “The Feels,” is about feelings that do not have an English word. Super interesting to learn about feelings and to raise awareness. My other proposed series is on powerful women that did not receive their deserved attention and recognition, such as C.J. Walker, a hairdresser who developed her own products early 20th century and became one of the first female self-made millionaires in the USA. She is now featured in a Netflix mini-series, played by brilliant Octavia Spencer. I am always curious and interested in what enriches people’s minds, what inspires, and what can move things forward.

This year in 2020, I created a bunch of music videos. One video is for Taj Weekes, whose reggae music and voice is warm and positive even when he sings about a tough topic. ‘41 shots” is a song about the many unarmed black people who died of police violence. Taj’s voice and the visuals stand in stark contrast. I researched and found video snippets of police officers offending unarmed people. The display of names of victims, photos and videos, create a memorial for those who died or have been shot.

This video was hard to make, hard to watch but creates more awareness of justice and equality. I think that we have to speak up, voice our opinions and work on our history to bring shadows into the light. If music video or branding package from logo to an explainer video, I always like to connect my client with their audience, clarify their intent and create beautiful, memorable images.

Has it been a smooth road?
Creatives never have smooths roads. It’s always a bit on edge, whether you are searching to do something edgier or designing something unusual, using new tools or the external challenges such as clients, who don’t pay or who change their minds after delivery, or who like to have the logo in pink because their toddler likes pink.

People are always the most challenging. Lately, I observed an overlay of fear in my client’s decisions. No longer clear or cohesive, it seems a lot of people just trape around in a state of mental fog these days.

We’d love to hear more about Viva Design.
My company Viva Design is specialized in branding and motion design. We go deeper into answering questions about the core idea of the business and the ‘problem” before we go into the creative phase… as Albert Einstein comments: “I would spend 55 minutes defining the problem and five minutes of solving it. “

Our strength is in divergent thinking, coming up with a lot of possible solutions before selecting a final. When we design content for social media, we ask ourselves if this does anything good, constructive, and positive in the world. I do not want to sound esoteric, but it is really important to me to do something I believe in. Our designs and content ideas are unusual, playful, eclectic. I want to surprise and deliver more than the initial ask. It’s fun to interpret a client’s creative brief and do something that fit’s brief yet is an original interpretation. I am also coming up with more and more of my own content ideas that I am pitching to social media platforms. And I love creating meaningful, educational, and entertaining videos for my client’s social media. Animated explainer videos are ideal for expressing abstract concepts or complicated processes.

Is our city a good place to do what you do?
The Covid crisis has taught us that we can do digital work wherever we find a good online connection (wifi speed) and take care of the client’s needs, listen well, work hard, and deliver on time.

Pricing:

  • A lyrics music video can range from a simple loop ($750) to a complex animation ($7500 and up)

Contact Info:

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