Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Tom Szorady. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Tom, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

The main reason I learned motion graphics was to further my career. I had been a graphic designer in Cleveland, Ohio for a good 10 years and it just wasn’t working out. It took a layoff at an ad agency to put my butt in gear and make a change. I signed up for an online class with the School of Motion while I did different freelance design jobs to pay the bills. Once I started working with clients for animation purposes, everything started to fall into place.

That doesn’t mean that I kicked my graphic design skills to the curb. Having industry experience with layout, composition, typography, etc., supplied a strong foundation to guide me in this new field. That, plus a good understanding of the 12 Principles of Animation (thank you, Disney’s Nine Old Men), and the ability to be easy to work with, helped me land gig after gig with repeat clients and opportunities with new clients.

I’d say the main obstacles that stood in my way were my fears of failure and my laziness. I would make excuses for myself to not learn programs such as After Effects. “The UI intimidates me!” “I don’t have the right system!” “I’m busy with a freelance gig that will pay me next to nothing!” As I got older, it was genuinely hard for me to sit in a chair and try to learn new programs just for the sake of learning new programs. I discovered that if I create a project goal in my head to use a certain program for an animated short, it will force me to learn as I go and maybe make me want to explore the program more.

Tom, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Tom Szorady. I am from Cleveland, Ohio and I am a professional motion designer and illustrator working in the commercial art/advertising industry and currently based in Los Angeles, California.

I began my career in graphic design in 2006 when I was hired to design interchangeable logo graphics and golf headwear until the 2008 market crash which made me experience my first layoff.

One independent sales job and a few freelance/perma-lance design jobs later, I was hired at an ad agency in downtown Cleveland for a few years. It was there that I found myself not enjoying the work that was given to me and wanting to be able to push creating pieces even further. Then my second layoff happened. Something had to change and I had to figure out how to become more valuable as a designer and commercial artist.

Throughout my employment and gigs with different companies, I began to notice more and more design animations in commercials and web videos. It was that second layoff and a conversation with one of my very good friends and peers that finally made me pull the trigger to learn “mograph” animation in After Effects. From then on, I have been fortunate enough to freelance with some of the best animation studios and motion designers in the Los Angeles area for some very identifiable brands.

The main area of focus in my mograph work is probably 2D animations, although I am always trying to learn 3D when I can or if the project calls for it. My style comes from my childhood influences of cartoons and comic books and I think a lot of my illustration and animation pieces reflect that. While a good amount of my animations usually begin with illustrations and images from either Illustrator or Photoshop, I really try to put some sort of hand-drawn illustration in my pieces. I have my tablet with me almost all of the time so that I can keep drawing as much as possible.

I think that I am most proud of being able to make whatever I want with my personal projects and not care about what other people think of them when I release them into the wild. I used to try and appeal to everyone and that really got me nowhere with feeling fulfilled.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

The biggest lesson I had to unlearn was to make a final piece absolutely perfect. I think that lesson started living in my head when I would hear teachers, bosses, and clients say that they expect the absolute best from me, which in turn would cause pressure and anxiety in my head. I’m not saying that it’s okay to hand in work that just gets by, but I also believe that you have to meet your deadlines first and foremost. If you obsess with making things perfect, you will turn work in late and become unreliable and even “hard to work with”. Another thing about trying to make things perfect is that it usually means more time is spent on something that is way past the rate that you agreed to.

Now without sounding like it’s okay to scam clients, I have realized that the best part about this industry is that most clients are not artists. And people who aren’t artists are normally blown away by our talents and trade. If you give each job 100% by coming up with a budget, schedule, and game plan, you will build long-lasting business relationships with companies and a great reputation within the industry. Even if you aren’t happy with the end result that you created, there’s still a perfect chance that everyone will love it and pay you for it.

Alright – so here’s a fun one. What do you think about NFTs?

I think creating art and selling it to someone’s personal collection is great. Coming from a print design background, it’s always flattering when someone buys a print of yours to hang in their home or a t-shirt that you designed. I think that motion designers should be able to make whatever they want and sell for a profit as well.

With that being said, I think NFTs are a big scam. And this isn’t a dig at the motion designers that created them. A lot of them made a good amount of money when the NFT space first emerged on the scene and I am very happy for them. But the idea that someone pays for a digital receipt for what is essentially a jpeg to say that they own it with the speculative belief that it will increase in value is very disturbing to me. Once NFT became a buzzword, it felt like every single media figure and brand rolled out NFTs just to make a quick buck off of uneducated consumers.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.szoradydesign.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/tomszorady
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomszorady/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/TomSzorady
• Other: https://vimeo.com/tomszorady

Image Credits
Note: These are all illustrations. For my mograph work, feel free to check out my website where you can find my reel and other projects.