A week in the life of an interactive graphics designer

Nat Hunter is managing director and founder of Airside, a cross-platform design agency that works in moving image, graphic design, illustration, digital and real world interaction.

 Nat Hunter sketchingNormally we don’t work long hours. At the start we said that we’d be a 10am to 6.30pm organisation. It works apart from when you’ve got a deadline.

I never start before 9am unless a client calls a meeting. However, I do normally do some work at the weekend. And, for example, last night I was at a talk. Two to three nights a week there’s some kind of work-related activity. That adds to the day.

Nat Hunter in a team meetingEvery Monday morning we have a meeting of the whole team. We sit down and go through the live projects, and what’s coming up. We also have creative meetings and kick-off meetings for new jobs. Then I have to answer a lot of emails. I get a huge amount.

As Managing Director I’m steering the company. There are a lot of meetings about new business and the company as a whole. I also go out to meetings and pitches and help to fill in tenders. I might meet with printers or see a new client.

I like the fact that I can think of something and make it happen. We work so closely as a team and just make it happen. Airside is supposed to be a place where you don’t feel creatively restricted. At the beginning we thought: ‘“Let’s be utopian about this’”. There’s diversity in what we do. It keeps us interested. We’d get bored otherwise.

Design is about problem solving and communication, rather than aesthetics.

I love working in the design industry. There’s always a new challenge, and I feel like I’ve found my place in the world.

Nat Hunet, Airside designWe have a mix of expertise here, web design, graphics, human/interactive interface and interior architecture. Everyone we employ comes from really mixed backgrounds. For example, no-one has an illustration background, yet they are all illustrators.

I cycle to work. There’s only one car between the 12 of us who work here.

Personally, I have always been a very active environmentalist. I never knew how to bring it into Airside. But as my awareness was raised on Airside’s impact on the planet, I was able to make changes. A year ago we got an “’outstanding” ‘ award in a green audit.

I had met Sophie Thomas and Caroline Clark at various eco networking things. Between us we realised that there was a market for a resource for designers. We set up Three Trees [Don't Make a Forest] to share our experience in creating effective sustainable design.

Nat Hunter in a meeting

 

Useful links

Visit the Airside websiteNat Hunter is Founder and Managing Director of Airside, a design agency that works in moving image, graphic design, illustration, digital and real world interaction. 

Visit the Three Trees websiteShe has also set up Three Trees Don't Make a Forest with two other sustainable designers, Sophie Thomas and Caroline Clark. 

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Nat's career path

 

Nat Hunter portrait

 

I always drew as a kid, but design wasn’t recognised at my school. My parents wanted to me be a doctor, so I did sciences.

I did environmental chemistry at Edinburgh University because I wanted to save the planet. I then switched to psychology and clicked with a module on the computer/human interface. Computers were still relatively new then.

There was also a video camera in the department, and I used it to make films. When I left university, I worked in sandwich bars and made films. But I always had this love of computers.

I went on to work as a systems analyst for Royal Bank of Scotland, but I didn’t like that environment. Then I began working as an administrator for a small design studio, and within three months was their junior designer. For four years I worked there, and trained on the job.

In 1993 I moved to London and did the country’s first MA in interactive multimedia, at the Royal College of Art. My experience in psychology, design, moving image and computer programming meant that I ticked all the boxes that they were looking for.

Suddenly everything gelled. The whole multimedia thing was perfect. You need psychology, to really understand how people experience something. You need to understand programming, as well as graphics to make sure it looks good.

After the course I freelanced. It was most glamorous. I worked on the interfaces in spaceships featured in Hollywood films, such as Lost in Space and Mission Impossible. I had to think about how a spaceship would work 300 years in the future.

But after a few years, I realised that a freelancer is always at the bottom of the pile. They are always brought in last. To do good design, you need to be brought in first.

I decided to set up a studio with the initial idea that myself and my freelance friends would work together, but the client would perceive us as a company. It resulted in a different balance of power, even though for the first year or so I continued to work for my old freelance clients.

I was in the right place at the right time. There were hardly any web companies in London. Things took off from there, and one thing led to another. We moved into making animated shorts for MTV, and then made a video for the group Lemon Jelly. From then on, we got lots of commissioned work in web design, graphics and animation.