Hi folks! I'm Ramsey Ruelas, and David asked me if I would like to be the featured artist for the site. You can read my student bio here. Of course this was while I was a student. So what has happened since then? For those that don't know, I studied at Texas A&M-Commerce. This is where I meet J, and thus started going to ABOSG and GUILD meetings. I really wanted to be a 3D animator, but along the way I found out that I really didn't have the heart for it.
I thought I would never get a job. I was just going through school without a real purpose, I was depressed and uninspired. Not to say that my work sucked, cause frankly, I'm a bad ass (not really). I just didn't know what to do. Many of the people that I hung out with were graphic design majors, and as the animator, I was always the odd one in the group. But seeing their passion for the work they do was great.
Around this time, I took a motion graphics class. It changed my
world. This was a facet of animation that I never knew of. It was
amazing, the best of both worlds, you can animate and design. I picked
up the program rather quickly, but I realized that if I really wanted
to get somewhere, I need to really work on my design skills. So I
decided to spend my last year of school focusing on that. I didn't take
one animation class, instead I focused on print work. Creating logos,
posters, book covers, advertisements, and more important than anything
else, concepting. Being friends with designers motivated me to try and
be as good as they are (many of whom won national design awards).
In my spare time, I began redoing my motion graphics project, to get
them looking as polished as possible with the sole purpose of entering
my work in Creative Summit (a design competition in San Marcos). Sadly
I didn't win anything, but when Greg Punchatz from Janimation came to
my class, I had my work in a state that I could quickly show him. Greg
gave me his email and said they were looking for a 2D intern. In a
couple of weeks I got a call to come in for an interview. I was so
excited. I went to their website and began reading any information that
I could about the company. This is when I read in their job posting
"nun-chuck skills are a plus".
The day of the interview, I went and answered some questions. "What
do you study?" "What programs do you know?" etc. At the end of the
interview I was asked if I had any questions. "Yeah, just one. Do I
have to do a nun-chuck test?" "Well........hold on." Moments later I
was given a pair of nun-chucks and had the whole studio in front of me
waiting to see if I knew how to swing nun-chucks. Needless to say, I
got the summer internship.
During the internship, I managed to work on a few projects, and was
even given a project to do on my own for a big agency in town (though
at the time they didn't know I was just a lowly intern). So when it was
time to go back to school, the boss called me into his office, a short
talk later I walked out with a job. Great right? How many people can
say they got a job before they graduated? Well let me tell you, it
sucked. Working full time and going to school full time is hard, but I
managed.
In December 07, I graduated with a BFA in new media. One of my logos
got into CMYK magazine, and even the work that I did as an intern got
an OMMA award. Nice happy ending. So that's it right. I'm set…………..Not
even. I still feel as if I have a lot to prove and a lot more knowledge
to acquire. Because of that, I try to stay active outside of
Janimation. I’ve gone back to my school to critique work. Painted some
designer toys for auction. I still attend ABOSG and GUILD meetings. I'm
also a member of the Dallas Society of Visual Communications (DSVC) and
I do pro bono work for them. I'm currently working on animations for
their award show. (Shameless plug,
http://nationalstudentconference.org/ check it out and see great
student design work, hear keynote speakers, and watch my award show
animations). I also have a long list of friends that I want to
collaborate with. And who knows, maybe one day I'll be famous and have
my own design shop.
Print Work
Web Work (Flash)
Refresh page to see animations again
Also check out eight of the nine Spearhead videos that were done by Ramsey (not including Black eyed Peas Typography)
For anyone that may need my services you can contact me or the company I'm with.
print:
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motion US: janimation.com
motion International: spearheadbranding.com
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