Julia Langran (Jules)

Where You Live: Lewes
Company: Quench Media
Job Title: Illustrator/Animator

Describe your job/role?
I do a lot of character creation and development for licensing companies. To do this, I have to look into the background of the campaign and consider how the designs might be used in the future, such as in fashion or a range of stationary.

I also create a lot of animated characters to be used online as well as some book illustration.

What is the best thing about your job?
I've always been interested in this area so I'm actually doing something for a living that I would do in my spare time. I've always wanted to do animation and that's an area of my work that's picking up.

What attracted you to it?
I was very interested in cartoons and comics as a kid, (I still am). I used to doodle characters all the time and still do. I have always been visually aware of what was going on around me.

What schools did you go to and what subjects did you take?
I went to St Joseph's Primary School in Haywards Heath and went on to St Paul's Catholic College where I took my GCSEs in Maths, English Literature/Language and Art among others. I then took A levels in Art and Design, English Literature and Economics.

What was your favourite subject and why?
Art and Design because that's what I wanted to do when I left school. I also liked English, particularly the creative writing side. It's good because they go hand in hand in my work today.

Did you go to University / College and if so what did you study?
No I didn't. I started a foundation course and then I got offered work in a local design firm. I think it was my last term of the foundation course so I left and I never went to university. I might go back. I'd quite like to do a degree related to my work in my spare time.

What was your first job?
My first paid job was colouring maps of a shopping development which my dad was working on. I was eight years old and I got paid £1 per map. I worked for an insurance company when I left school because I wasn't sure what I was going to do. It was kind of a gap year and it pushed me into doing a foundation course. After that, I got offered a job at a local design firm.

What does your career path look like?
Varied. I worked for a marketing department at a confectionery wholesalers which involved sales and poster work. Then I ran the in-house design department in London for an insurance broker. It was good experience but I found myself being more and more involved in meetings rather than actually doing the design work.

I left for an online fashion retailer called boo.com. That was really good as I enjoyed creating the animations for their microsites - that was my introduction to Flash. After that, I worked for IconMedialab working on websites for companies such as Motorola.

I then worked for Littleloud in Brighton, who are a digital production and animation company.

I left there to go to Australia for a year. After I came back, I decided to go freelance as an illustrator and animator.

Which women have inspired and influenced your career?
My mum. She is a career woman who worked her way from the bottom to the top. She has retired now but she was always hard-working and focused on her work for which she earned the respect of everyone around her.

What would you say is your strongest attribute/s?
A lot of the work I do involves modernising established brands and characters so I work hard to understand very clearly what they mean to the people whom own them.

I am also very good at planning out the story behind what I am doing, whether it's an animated piece or a story behind a character I am creating.

I also work very hard to keep up with the latest design trends in many different areas of the media. For example, I need to know what colours will be in fashion next season.

What do you think is the most exciting/interesting thing about working in the digital media industry?
I guess because it's becoming more accessible. It used to only about design and illustration/animation was hard to break in to but now you can get different people involved much more easily.

Technology is advancing and giving us more places where we can show off our work. For example, Broadband is more widely available so you can really push the boundaries of online animation. Another massive area of growth is screensavers on mobile phones.

What advice would you give to people who consider entering the digital media industry?
Without doubt, the most important thing is networking and when you make contacts, use them. If you're doing the kind of work I do, it is important to have your own website to advertise your work.

I would also recommend entering online competitions, you won't get paid for them but you will get exposure.