Andy and Ezequiel are two very talented lovely humans today from Six N. Five. When they left Serial Cut in 2014 to start their own gig, they spent three whole months not accepting client work to work on their own portfolio. It worked—the result blew up on Behance and Pinterest and bam! ? a line of incredible clients waiting outside there door. With agents in four countries around the world and touring the design conferences speaking, you could say Six N. Five is a success ?
Where did you study and what were some of your first jobs?
We both studied Graphic Design at FADU UBA(University of Buenos Aires, Argentina), this turned out to be key for starting our career. We really loved our course for many reasons — first of all, its free, its open for everyone, and its top level education. The majority of professors are not paid and they give everything to the institution and students. I think during my time at FADU I experienced the best link between professionals and students averrable within Argentina. Also, there are no computers at the university. All the learning is from mastering the basics (paper, materials, pencil, tools, light, etc). Of course you can use a computer if you have one, but in the 2 first years majority of it is more manual stuff and experimention.
How do you solve conflicting ideas within a group of collaborators?
We collaborate with friends and talented people for some of our projects. Involving people from the beginning of the project is a must to elevate a project to the quality we want to reach. This is a way of trying to develop the biggest amount of brainstorming possible before starting the production. When we are happy with the ideas and sketches we start working on the production of the project, a part of the process that is fun and heavy at the same time. We like to let ideas open during the process of production in order to be surprised with some “errors” that could happen and maybe make them work for the final project. We try to maintain the conflicting ideas open the more time possible. This allow us to stay alert if something good comes up during the process.
Tell us about any collaborations you have been working on.
We are working a lot with our friend Sebastian Baptista, an animation director that is our guru for all projects that need extra love with keyframes and animation. We really enjoy working with him because we know each other so well that we don't have to explain the background or what we’re thinking. Thats a key to a sweet smooth process. We like to share early-stages of the projects with him in order to reach the best story telling solution possible.
What have been some of your biggest disasters and how have you learnt from it?
RENDERS! When we were starting we used to have problems with render timings (we still have ha ha). I think thats something that will be with every 3D designer for their entire career. Machines are getting faster and very powerful, but theres still lack of real time (as in illustrator, that you can see what you do in the exact moment). We like to give our renders a lot of details, that takes time and increases exponentially the render time.
What career advice would you give your 16yr old self?
Spend more hours specialising in software! But don't forget to continue with hand sketching too. We think design is heading more into animation and augmented reality in the next five years and we want to make sure we’re across it. Other advice would be to build a plan for your productive hours. Schedule stages to get things done. And also, working in-house a studio in early stages of your career will give you that pump that you will need for your future professional career.
What role does digital design play in your studio in 2017, and how to you apply traditional graphic design skills in a digital age?
Nowadays the majority of our work is digital. But nothing could be done without studying with cutting papers, glue and collage. The principles of design are there. You will find nothing in the computer software if you don't master the basics first
Where to find Six N. Five online.
Website: sixnfive.com
Instagram: sixnfive
