Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean.
–Ryunosuke Satoro, Japanese Poet

 

When I start thinking about anything new I want to do, whether it is a simple graphic, completely new content series or a personal project (i.e. ‘Family Cookbook’ I am currently working on with my mom), instead of thinking deeply about every single aspect of the piece and how I want it to look like or sound, I first think of who I want to work with on this and who would be excited about it, potentially even more than me. It is very important to inspire people with your ideas and, trust me, you will do that if you find the right thing for the right person. Everyone is different, everyone has their own style, skill set, character and thoughts. I had awesome ideas I wanted us to put out for the clients but I either didn’t have enough budget/time or a Hollywood studio to help us out. Finding a balance between dreams and reality and knowing who you have on your side, what they are able to do and what they excel at will make your dreams closer to reality and is crucial in putting any ideas into motion.

 

 

 

It’s very helpful if the people you work with have different skills developed in their arsenal. What I find best though is having them do the work they enjoy doing the most and, sometimes, when you need them, helping the team with the stuff they ‘didn’t really sign up for’. A common issue that I have faced throughout the years with people on my team, and which I believe is probably a usual thing in the art industry and creative agencies in general is ‘illustrator vs designer’. As illustrators, people usually don’t get to work on things that excite them enough and they either end up doing illustration work which is completely foreign from their style or end up doing design work which is a completely different world. So when I look at my team and think about a new project, I set things up so that everyone can do what they love doing. And if there is work to be done which is an extra thing, or something no one enjoys doing, I talk to them and ask who’s up for it or make a suggestion and then we figure it out together.

 

 

I have a similar Dota comparison. Let’s say you love playing core but you are about to do a 5 man queue with people you love playing with, who only know how to play the core role and support is the only one left. You love the game, you love your teammates, but you don’t really like the role. You have a basic understanding of it but you don’t really enjoy it and feel like you’re in someone else’s shoes and you don’t think you can give your all through it. Playing a game or two like that will feel alright, but you will always tend to go back to what you love playing. The benefits out of that though and why I encourage you to do it in the first place – firstly, you will earn your teammates’ trust if you jump in where the help is needed and  secondly, as an individual, you will either learn something that will benefit you in the future or help you do your core job better. It’s just crucial that you don’t end up having to drift away from what you love and essentially who you are, because then you won’t be happy about it yourself.

 

 

All my learnings about the above and the years of grind led to the setup which we have today. At Tier S, our creative department is called ‘MAKE’ because we, simply put, make shit happen. Our roles today are:

 

Tier S Make :.

 

I can finally say I’m happy with the setup we have. There are some overlaps between the roles (i.e. some of the video editors also do some motion design and designers can draw) and some of the roles above have more than 1 person for the job (i.e. illustrator, video editor etc) but this is what I believe is an essential team that can help build whatever form of content on daily basis. In one of the future blog posts I will further break down the current setup and explain the strategy (direction) & production (execution) levels within the team, and if you want to learn more now you can toss me a message via email. Just for the sake of reference, when we kicked !.99 off in 2015, this team consisted only of Mateja (our Art Director), Elroy (Creative Director back then) and me.