Asking Creatives of Forward #4: What do you love and/or hate most about your job?

Have you ever wondered about how other creatives work or deal with the difficulties of the creative industries? Welcome to “Asking Creatives of Forward”, our new series in which we ask the creatives of our newly founded Forward Network about their daily hustle, their techniques and other advice.

Forward Network is THE hub between brands and creatives that aims to enable successful collaborations and projects that outshine the competition. By now the network already counts about 40 creatives of 14 different fields ranging from photography, AR/VR, motion design, 3D, creative code, film, sound design, street art, lettering, AI, text and illustration.

Working as a self employed creative bears the risk of never knowing exactly what a client will be like but still be dependent on them. Unfortunately, the majority of creatives can’t afford the luxury of choosing who they want to work for or not. But what if they could? In the third edition of “Asking creatives of Forward” our members dreamed up the ideal client and let us know what the important components of a fruitful collaboration are.

Subscribe to our newsletter to stay updated on the ever-growing network and find more info about joining as a creative or starting a project with the network here.

What do you love and/or hate most about your job?

101: Loving is easy: we got to work with interesting people from all kinds of professional domains. Challenging us, sometimes outside our comfort zone, we learn a lot from them and the creative process initiated by them. That never gets boring, making each of our projects a unique experience. In rare cases our job can be frustrating, when we cannot realize our projects fully: sometimes lack of budget, time issues or disagreement with clients lead to results that are not the ones we’ve hoped for in the beginning, being unsatisfying compromises.

Zoe Guggenbichler I love that there is always something new to explore and learn. At the moment, I very much enjoy discovering new techniques and getting to integrate them in my project. I also like the aspect that you have various projects that you can be proud of. I enjoy doing something I love and to make things look pretty. It’s crazy, but right now, I would say that I really don’t hate anything about what I do.

David Adeoye I love that you can craft entirely new experiences, while you have to think of how to describe attributes like movement only with sound. What I hate is that it’s sometimes hard to describe what you mean, because there’s not such an extensive vocabulary for describing sound. For visual work we can point at things we want to change, for sound it’s harder.

Wald und Schwert: Flexible office times, for both.

Vincent Wagner Ideation and experimentation are lovely; waiting for simulations to cache and for animations to render isn’t great for an impatient person like me.

Allan Berger When possible, I try to avoid repetitive tasks that don’t offer new or innovative features – but even those tasks need to be done and are part of the process. Ideally, you still learn something new. I love that I have the opportunity to be creative, work with cutting-edge technologies and innovative features, and constantly learn something new.

David Silva: I love to solve the mystery of what my clients are really looking for. I love to listen and to understand and feel the core concepts of the project I work on. Design is sorcery to me, it conveys all my questions and thoughts about what is to be alive, and I love to have this in mind for every project I do.

Maximilian Prag What is work and what is free time?

Monika Ernst On one hand, I love the artistic freedom that clients usually give me when they choose to work with me, but on the other hand, I find it incredibly scary that the majority of people still have firstly no idea that illustrator is a profession and secondly what you do as an illustrator in the first place.

Marko Mestrovic: I love the flexibility I’ve got when it comes to deciding when or where to work. Hate is a harsh word and I wouldn’t want to use it, but I’m really bummed often when I hear how young photographers are being treated by clients and agencies. Price dumping is real and a big problem in our industry.

Rosa Kammermeier: I love to do what I do! I only hate paperwork.

Lucas Christiansen: I love being in my own responsibility. At the end of the day, I am my own boss and what I put into my job, is what I get out of it. I don’t really hate something, of course there are also some tasks, which are less fun than others, but I still do them with joy, since I do it for me.

Cin Cin: We love it when we can present new perspectives and opportunities for our clients. The moment when they realize that something exciting is happening during the process, and the joy which the final outcome gives to them, is a great motivation and gratification for us as a studio.

Birgit Palmer: I hate and at the same time love the freedom which comes with it.

Robert Wagenlechner I love that my job is a huge playground. A lot of the kids you can meet there are incredibly interesting, talented and fun to play and spend time with. The downside: adults who take away your toys and force you to eat your vegetables and track your working hours.

Miro Tiebe: I love that I can work from wherever I have Internet, for example lying in the Garden or somewhere in Nature. What I hate most is that many Clients don’t understand that also freelancing people have a right for a weekend from Friday afternoon until Monday morning. =D

Bounty Studio We love that we can draw and animate for a living! A dream come true!

PERKUP: I love my job because I never do the same thing. Every job challenges me differently and I get around a lot. What is becoming more and more exhausting for me is communicating with customers. I wouldn’t say I hate it but it’s not my favorite job.

Artefact: As trained architects, we love to work on the intersection of architecture and digital art on an urban scale. We see Augmented Reality as a sustainable and playful way to transform our immediate surroundings with meaningful content

Andi Meier: What I love about my job is that I have found something in which I can fully express myself creatively and often even make people smile. What makes it stressful sometimes are the often tight deadlines.

Toni Eisner: Everyone has a say in how I’m doing my job and people not recognizing the worth of good graphic design.

LWZ: I love and hate thinking about my work simultaneously. I love to be part of being constantly a work in progress, but sometimes it is also a bit intimidating.

Thomas Waidhofer: The freedom to work when you want is probably the best thing it brings. The worst thing is the fear of failure, which fortunately is still unjustified to this day.

Lukas Diemling: I love the diversity of people you get to know when you have a lot of different clients. What makes me hate my job sometimes is that I spend way too much time in front of a screen.

REVKIN: I love the variety of jobs and assignments – each gig is different. I love how I’m doing storyboards one day and a mural on the next. What could be better is less screen time overall.

Process Studio: It can be very fulfilling to see a project evolve from an idea to a finished thing—whatever that may be: a brand, an artwork, an installation, printed matter or a combination/something else.

keinGarten: Clients.

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The launch of Forward Network is supported by Vienna Business Agency.