Today we’d like to introduce you to Xiaolin Zeng.
Hi Xiaolin, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I come from a small city in China. I started using PowerPoint for animation and design in middle school, simply because I didn’t know there were other animation tools at the time, and PPT was the most common software for class presentations. Later, I discovered it could be used for design and even games, and that’s when my design journey began.
As a child, I spent a lot of time on it. In high school, I discovered After Effects and started exploring Adobe software. When I got into university, I didn’t get into my first-choice major—advertising design—so my family suggested accounting, saying it would be easier to find a job. I agreed without thinking much. But in college, I discovered Cinema 4D and got into motion design. In my second year, I dropped out and went to China’s top media university to audit classes. I created my own timetable, balancing classes and personal projects. It was tough, but I felt I learned a lot.
Later, I joined a local motion design studio while working on personal projects in my spare time. I made many works, such as Pause 2017 Opening Titles and Awaken Akira with Ash Thorp, which drew international attention and led to speaking invitations from organizations like Motion Plus Design. I began taking on both domestic and international commercial projects, often collaborating with Somei Sun and Elastic. Recently, my work with Elastic on The Last of Us and Shogun main title designs won the Emmy for Outstanding Main Title Design for two years in a row, which I feel very lucky about.
Since I’m self-taught, I turned my learning methods into tutorials and founded the MOMENTOR teaching platform to help more people learn motion design and Cinema 4D. Today, I continue to take on projects worldwide, always aiming to create great design.
Alright, 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?
Because I’m self-taught, many challenges came from the repeated experiments and the huge amount of time and effort spent on personal projects. The hardest period was in the early stages, before I had entered the motion design community. Things got a bit easier after I started working in a studio.
Another challenge was switching between the roles of an artist and a designer. I love creating personal works, but in commercial projects, a lot of things have to be made according to the client’s requirements, which often caused conflicts. I can handle these conflicts well now, but when I first entered the industry, they felt much stronger.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I mainly work on motion design, title sequences, advertising, and concept development, with my favorite being title sequences and cinematic-related projects. Some of my most influential works are:
Pause 2017 Opening Titles: https://www.behance.net/gallery/43288301/Pause-2017-Opening-Titles
Awaken Akira: https://www.behance.net/gallery/65092569/AWAKEN-AKIRA
Miracle Love: https://www.behance.net/gallery/116575331/-MIRACLE-LOVE-CITYPOP-MV
These are all personal projects, and what sets me apart is that I have created a large body of personal works, which has helped me develop my own style.
In commercial projects, I’m particularly proud of my work on The Last of Us main title and Shogun main title, especially Shogun, where I designed all the shots and handled most of the motion.
How do you think about luck?
I think one of the best examples of luck in my career is related to the Emmy Awards. I had been collaborating with Elastic for quite some time, sometimes designing pitches for them, and sometimes working on title sequences. One year, director Nadia invited me to design the main title for The Last of Us. After I completed part of it, we had to pause and wait for client feedback. At the same time, she had another title sequence project—Shogun—and she invited me to design that as well.
It turned out that both went on to win the Emmy for Outstanding Main Title Design in two consecutive years. I consider that incredibly lucky. But that luck also came from years of creating personal projects, which allowed people to see my passion for design. I’m grateful they trusted me with such important work. It’s a reminder that if you keep doing what you love, luck will eventually find you.
Of course, there has also been bad luck. Self-teaching, dropping out of university, and personal losses—such as the passing of family members and pet—made my life quite unstable. As a result, I became something of a workaholic, finding it hard to enjoy idle time. But I need to balance life and work.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://zaoeyo.co
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/zaoeyo
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-zeng-94530456/
- Other: https://Be.net/zaoeyo
Image Credits
The last one: Elastic.tv
