We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Amanda Russell a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Amanda, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.

My mom and dad really nurtured my creative side as a child. I was a very quiet kid, and I found it difficult to speak to someone new until I was in high school. Because of my shy nature, I had a lot of time by myself and I found that drawing was a source of joy that allowed me to see outside of my own insecurities. I could imagine something that didn’t exist and then bring it to life with a few crayons and a piece of paper. It was freeing and I became focused on a future career in the visual arts while in grade school.

At the same time, I discovered the gratifying feelings that lived inside of music and dance. Music was transformative for me, and I channeled it through ballet and other forms of dance. I was able to take piano and violin lessons for a few years, but ultimately committed most of my extra time to a competitive dance company from the age of 8-16 years old. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the freedom my parents afforded me to be a creative child somehow gave me the permission I needed to chase my creative dreams as an adult.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

As a kid, I was extremely passionate about creative expression. Drawing, painting, writing, carving, designing, ballet, violin and piano. Being creative allowed me to discover new ways of looking at the world, and empowering me to find my own solutions to the challenges along the way. By the time I was in high school, I had worked on a number of logos and print layouts for family friends who needed something for their small businesses. This path eventually lead me to major in Graphic Design in college.

After working in a few sign shops, I transitioned to work as a graphic artist with a broadcast news company. It was my introduction to animation and I learned as much as I could from online tutorials, community forums, as well as my peers and Creative Directors. This was the moment I realized what I really wanted to do with my career so I left to pursue the kind of work I wanted to create. After a couple of years of working at a production studio, I eventually went full time freelance as a motion graphics artist. Finally, in 2013 I opened Cream with two other incredibly talented artists, Ruth Newberry-Wilson and Dave Swain. We had no idea what we were doing at first, but each year got a little easier as the studio naturally found its stride.

Today, Cream is a well-oiled machine creating visually delicious animated experiences for brands all over the world. We’ve had the honor of collaborating with high profile clients such as Disney, Paramount+, Target, Capital One, etc. on projects such as brand anthems, opening videos for large events, movie titles, and commercials for broadcast and web. And although I’m enormously proud of the quality of work that comes out of our studio, I’m even prouder of the quality of employees that work within it. The Cream team is so down-to-earth and easy to work with, and its a joy to be around such a wonderful bunch of talented humans. We prioritize strong communication, work/life balance, and decline the type of projects that risk disrupting the culture we’ve worked so hard to construct. These boundaries in our business keep us healthy and happy as a team, and because of them, we avoid the dreaded “burn out” that so many creatives experience in their career.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

The thing that drives me the most these days is the desire to make the world a better place in the ways that I can. I’m not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but I do my very best to be helpful, kind and use the skills and experience that I’ve developed in the motion design world to mentor those who are just starting out. I’ve been humbled by the amount of gratitude from motion designers just because I was willing to do a 15 minute call with them. The first few times it happened I was in shock and it actually made me a little sad to know that I could have been doing way more to help others my entire career. But imposter syndrome is very real, and it never goes away, so it’s very common for creatives to not know their own value to everyone else. The reality is that everyone is a step ahead of someone else, so we all have knowledge that can be shared and appreciated.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

When most people meet me, they tend to think I’m naturally outgoing, but that isn’t the case at all. I have battled social anxiety my entire life, and when we started the business ten years ago, I remember being afraid to be on client calls. I even faked an illness for a couple of them because I was in full panic mode. It was completely irrational so I didn’t talk about it until I was ready to change.

Over time I got better and better at appearing like a normal human, but then Cream began getting more attention from the media, and I was getting invited to podcasts and speaking events as a guest speaker. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine I could overcome this fear because it had crippled me many times before in school. Even reading aloud in class would result in a beet-faced sweat fest. But in 2022, I was asked to do a 90 minute speaking engagement for Camp Mograph, and I said “yes.”

I’ll spare you the details, but after 7 months of writing, practicing, freaking out, and re-writing my speech, I stepped on stage to face the crowd that had haunted me for so long. I was ready to feel the familiar rush of blood to my face, the sweat in my palms, and the dry choke in my throat. But that didn’t happen. Instead, I felt the energy of love and curiosity from each and every person there. I can’t put it into words, but my fear melted away in that moment. It was a life changing experience for me, and I’m no longer afraid and I actually look forward to more speaking engagements later this year!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://wearecream.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wearecreamstudio/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanda-russell-cream-studio/
• Other: Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/wearecreamrva

Image Credits
All work images created by Cream Studio