Dan Kanach: MLWGS Lunchtime Lecture

As someone who is interested in design as well as art, I found Dan Kanach's lecture to be especially intriguing, especially for a future career or hobby exploration of the artistic genres. He mentioned how design involves problem-solving, aiming for user-friendliness and user thinking. He also covered his background story, covering the qualifications he obtained and the journey to becoming a design team manager and animator, two jobs I have found interest in before. Kanach also mentioned a lot of career tips in his lecture, talking about the various software tools, portfolio to build, and participating in competitions for recognition. I thought this was especially interesting, because this is how someone in this venue would actually be able to make a living out of the subject. Participating in competitions for recognition is something that I think is the most interesting, since it seems like it would be very enjoyable, educational, as well as productive and effective for recognition. I also liked Kanach's brief covering of creative process insights, like character rigging, animation, and motion graphics. I have always admired good animations, and it was nice to see how one behind the scenes would actually achieve such pieces of work. Overall, this lecture really brightened me up to the idea of design as a career path, especially in animation.