Effects Artist -

When people ask what I do I normally respond with the answer that I'm a visual effects artist. For some reason the next immediate question from them is either "Oh do you do graphic design?" or "Oh are you a web designer?". While yes I did make this website and yes I did take graphic design classes in both art schools my degrees are in computer animation and digital visual media. Certainly there are principles of design that come into play when creating a computer animation or adding visual effects to a scene. A graphic designer usually works in two dimensions X and Y. Every once in a while there's a designer who will make use of the Z coordinate as well adding depth to their designs. A video editor or even a motion graphics compositor will typically make use of 3 dimensions though they are using X,Y, and Time. In order to create a fully computer generated animation requires the use of all four dimensions. It can be ridiculously complex to create a realistic scene or even just one object that looks believably real. So... the answer to the questions are yes I'm capable of being a graphic designer or a web designer, but no that's not my job title or description. Those people would typically be doing magazine layouts or creating websites for a living or something along those lines.