UNDERSTANDING PATRICK CLAIR

I am really proud of this article that I wrote about Patrick Clair for Motionographer in 2018!

The only real bummer is that I decided to go with no direct quotes, and therefore left a lot of amazing, inspirational things that Patrick said on the cutting room floor. As a writer I’m happy with this choice but feel like I deprived the community of some real gems. 

So here are my Top Ten favorite quotes from the interview:

1. "When you’re figuring out what your voice is, consume everything voraciously across the broadest possible spectrum. And then once you’ve found it, focus on just what you do."

2. "There can be a little bit of a trend-churn in the industry, and if you’re going to do distinctive work you need to be really careful to get out of that trend-churn."

3. "If you find a way to do something efficiently -- basically cheaply -- than you’ll get more creative freedom."

4. "There certainly was a point where I stopped getting my inspiration from motion graphics. And I started getting it from anywhere but."

5. "Bookstores are my weakness, my Achilles heel. Bookstores are my crack. I’m just hopelessly addicted to bookstores. And have been for years."

6. "One of the hardest things with anyone’s career is that you tend to get pigeonholed. You tend to get more work like the work you got before. And that’s great because it tends to be what you’re good at. But it can also be frustrating. And you want to find those chances to just step forward."

7. "Yeah, I don’t know if I have necessarily a process. I read articles about people who seem to have these very set processes. And I feel a little jealous as my process is mainly “get a bunch of information and then just panic that I won’t be able to come up with an idea.” And that panic continues until delivery day."

8. "Certainly for me I came from a design and a hands-on background. And there’s something really satisfying about doing design hands-on. Truthfully, sometimes I find it’s easier to do yourself than to try and convey it to someone else. Not because you’re better at doing it, but because you don’t have to face the challenge of articulating it. You can just trust your hands."

9. "I don’t think you can do this job if you aren’t a design nerd. And being a design nerd is a really fun thing to be."

10. "I think the challenge in motion graphics -- and in all sort of design -- is to not let the aesthetics overwhelm the story and the meaning of things."

Read the article HERE.