Lindsay Daniels

Posted by Justin Cone

lindsay.jpg

Lindsay Daniels recently launched her personal site, featuring a moody reel brimming with her sophisticated style. Her work—particularly her typography—has a timeless, classic quality to it that lends it an air of maturity.

Nearly all of the projects on Lindsay’s site and reel are from her time at Digital Kitchen, but now she’s heading up a new venture in Soho (New York) called “Favorite Color.” (Or so a little birdie told me.) Should be interesting. Stay tuned for details.

UPDATE: Favorite Color just made a post on our Jobs page and included a URL to their site. Nothing there yet, but at least I know where to point my browser when the time comes.

About the author

Justin Cone

/ justincone.com
Together with Carlos El Asmar, Justin co-founded Motionographer, F5 and The Motion Awards. He currently lives in Austin, Texas with is wife, son and fluffball of a dog. Before taking on Motionographer full-time, Justin worked in various capacities at Psyop, NBC-Universal, Apple, Adobe and SCAD.
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31 Comments

erinsarofsky

At last, the wizard is finally revealed …

today my favorite color is a reallly dark midnight blue.

Jon

Good lord. Bunch of Quicktimes all on one page loading at once is a bad idea.

suprememoves

Gorgeous work. Been a fan for years. She really defines dk. Not a huge fan of this site though and the compression on her reel is pretty heavy. Granted it loads fast but I’d rather wait and see quality. A lot of the detail and subtleties in her work are lost. Great designer though and I can’t wait to see what she comes out with in her solo venture.

Davidkamp

wow. great work!

Herman

Awesome! Rinds! YOU ROCK!!!!!
haha this makes me smile sooo much!
nice work!!

dieLAMB

Nice way to kick off the New Year Lindsay!

dustedone

Motionographer should not be supporting these shady sales tactics. This is obviously a ploy to get new business at a new company, by showing the work from another company.

the_surgeon

lame, so very lame. i agree.

oeuf

Yeah, real shady… especially when she added this…

“All Digital Kitchen work on this website is property of Digital Kitchen and was created in a collaborative effort.”

And what would you rather have them show if it’s a new company, with no work of their own to show, and all previous work was done at another company?

I think there was the same discussion in the PandaPanther thread when they first appeared on the scene…

zeniamai

very very nice. Her works has an added sophistication and posh to it.

yates

Yeah real shady. Now lets all make our own websites, design our own boards, and animate all of our own projects, run our own dynamic simulations and then in our spare time woo all of the major ad agencies single handedly.

OR

We could be happy there are job postings.

KGB

The credits are there. The disclaimer is there. And the reel is on her personal site. Whats the problem?

Anyway…if she is starting a new company, her experience/history carries over… Even if the new company site had the same reel, it would still be an indication of what the members of the company(at least Lindsay) are capable of accomplishing.

Great work btw!

CreativeDirector

Most people forget that creative directors use designers for ideas. Not true that her past work with an established talent base is any indication of what the new company is capable of. DK has been around and has an established style and a great infrastructure to support their projects. Every company works differently. I do think its shady to mention her new company, especially if she just made her personal site. Why does she have a personal site when she is opeing her new company. Is she shopping herself around? I think not. Shameless!

rothermel

Alright Lindsay! Site looks great, work is awesome… keep it up.

Ryan

vicelord

She seems to have the same “Grid” project I saw on http://www.dannyyount.com

davco9200

I am a little disappointed in her site – she doesn’t give any credit on those jobs. For all the jobs I was associated with her at DK, she was ONLY the designer – NOT the creative director, NOT the animator, NOT the editor, etc. She was only involved in the boards portion of the job, then it was handed off to someone else.

By the comments above, it is clear to me that people think she directed these spots, which is absolutely not the case. I really appreciate when people have COMPLETE credit lists (like Matt Lavoy) so it is clear portion they did.

PathosPathos

I think that to avoid taking too much credit, Linsday should post her storyboards for the spots in her montage– then we can clearly see on what level her storyboards have played in the work being presented.

As someone who has worked with DK for many years, I can say that the role of storyboard design within their work varies extremely wide for every spot. The boards can be accountable for every detail of animation, or they can simply be seen as patinas for the animators and 3d artists on how they should design their own elements and come up with their own transitions. For some jobs, animators can simply import the design files and start working; for other jobs, the original storyboard design becomes disregarded by clients after the first motion test is seen; or for jobs with liveaction– to credit the storyboard from the look and feel of the final spot gets even more complex. In light of this, I think its especially important for storyboard designers to present the storyboards along side the quicktimes on their sites.

I have always associated many of the spots on Lindsay’s reel with the people with the people that I knew who worked on the production, including one of the spots that I worked on myself. After watching her reel and a few of the quicktimes, I was completely surprised when I realized that Lindsay was involved during the initial design phase: because like someone mentioned before, often times after a storyboard is picked the designer is no longer involved with the project, regardless of how many times the design is changed later during production– so it hardly seems honest to see the final spot presented on their site without the storyboard in context, especially when they are currently presenting themselves as a creative director.

msalek

great work, i dont care if she is just a board designer or if she rendered the whole spots, all i know is that i see so much hate on this comments, why the public hating? maybe people nodaways is too busy to know that there is something called private messages anyways.
happy hating y’all!

red

Iris

Lindsay! Website is good. It’s simple and elegant.
I really like it! Work is awesome! keep it up.

Iris

anonymousdesigner

I think there are 2 separate issues being discussed in this forum.

One is what PathosPathos just delved into; the role of a storyboard designer and what rights they have to claim work if they didn’t produce it themselves. Well I pose these next few questions to continue this healthy dialogue.

What right does any of us have to take credit for work… doesn’t it belong to the creative directors and art directors at advertising agencies that have us execute their concepts? In the cases when storyboard artists get to develop the concepts then perhaps it is their right to claim the project as their own, even if they don’t produce it?

Here is the crux question … How many of the engineers and contractors can you name that have contributed building a frank gehry structure? Doesn’t it start and end with the original inspiration?

Second, is what dustedone, oeuf and CreativeDirector were discussing … The rights of designers/animators/3d artists/creative directors to show work on their personal sites that has clearly been created in a collaborative effort.
I think a clear credit list is fair (but again why does no designer ever share who the agency creatives are), and as far as I can see she has one.

But people are forgetting that it is a natural thing for designers to evolve into creative directors and then into business owners. Its healthy for the industry _ and we should all be thankful that our industry is growing enough to support of our evolving artists/entrepreneurs.

The the only thing that will tell us whether or not Lindsay’s work is a result of the company she kept at digital kitchen or her own talent is the work she develops in her career.

Hopefully Lindsay and her new endeavor will work out … The way superfad, shilo, vitamin ….. All worked out.

lettershome

Lindsay is an amazingly creative and talented designer. She has concepted and helped to execute many, many wonderful ideas.

Anyone who knows her also knows how talented she is. Unfortunately the dog-eat-dog mentality of the design culture doesn’t ever give anyone credit. It’s pretty hilarious actually, because you’ll all you haters will reap what you sow soon enough.

dsign

This is a very worthwhile conversation with many points to consider. I’d be curious to know how many people think it is the responsibility of the design/production company – in this case – Digital Kitchen – to provide full credits (which could include agency credits all the way down to intern credits) for any project they show on their website.

As much as the most honest designer, animator, 3d whiz, etc. (I’ll just say designer from here on out for brevity’s sake) would like to credit everyone and their role in the most accurate way possible on a job – there are bound to be omissions,errors,inconsistencies, and heaven forbid – hurt feelings by someone on the job if this is left up to each person.

Since we devote so much time (blood), mental exertion (sweat), and persistence (tears) to our particular craft, it’s no wonder feelings get hurt easily and suspicions arise when someone forgets to give credit where credit is due.

Wouldn’t it seem appropriate that to avoid all this confusion – the designer should properly explain their contribution to the project on their personal website and also provide a way to view full credits that would be provided by the design/production company to the designer.

As a failsafe, if each design/production company provided full credits on their own website for any project they show, then it’s as easy as a trip over to that company’s site to check out who did what on the job.

It’s not only a question of keeping everyone honest about their role on a job – it’s also about the design/production company showing the proper respect for those that help make their company look great. It sets the proper example for an agreed upon set of credits.

Is it too much to ask that this become more of a standard in our industry? It really doesn’t take that long to put a credits list together or incorporate it into an existing website design.

In the end, adopting this practice makes the company look good for recognizing the people that worked so hard on the job. Until this becomes more of a standard practice, I think there unfortunately will be many more cases like this one involving Lindsay. I’d love to know your thoughts.

KGB

Some great points made here….

vicelord

I completely agree with dsign… In this industry, careers of both people and companies are made by taking advantage on that confusion or lack of clear credits. Personally, it’s enough for me to have my peers know who’s the real deal and who’s inflating their contributions. We’ve all worked with them, they always bug us, and time always tells. This is too competitive of an industry and there’s just so much ego driven mediocre talent out there that truly gifted people will ultimately NOT go unnoticed. Also, good people usually are the ones left standing when the smoke clears. If you work hard, if you’re a good likable person, if your ideas are great (or even if they’re just good) if you’re articulate and thoughtful, and you dedicate yourself to your passion, everything will work out for you, no matter what anyone else does or says. So everyone, take your energies and put them into making design better, the industry needs it. Great work is becoming a rarity, our standards are gradually eroding, and the same old same old formulas, tricks and techniques are turning motion design into the mid 1980’s version of Genesis. So, get back to work doing something worth watching for fucksake!

materiamonster

First off, I would say she is definitely in the wrong here about posting quicktimes without boards for reference. Second off, as glorious and noble as it sounds, I am sure if every studio listed everyone involved then certain studios will have the INS or the IRS or other studios after their secret weapons if you know what I mean.

dsign

materiamonster….people talk and move around enough in this industry to be able to find out quite easily who worked on what. Brand New School’s site is very open about listing credits of who did what. And there are other studios that do the same. I think we can all respect that they care more about showing who was involved instead of trying to hide to the public who their talent is. And also, if a spot is worth showing on Boards, Stash, etc., there are always full credits. I would hope studios providing full credits will become more of a standard practice as people are attracted to studios that share the glory rather than keep it all for themselves.

brandj

Completely agree with dsign’s points. This should be standard practice for everyone in the industry.

Marc B.

Agree too with the above points.
I’m curious about what Lindsay thinks on all of this?

microdot

VICELORD RULES, AND HATERS ARE FOOLS!

dieLAMB

Looking great Lindsay!

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