(Headshot photo of Krystle May)
“I knew in my heart I wanted to work in games.” This is Krystle May Alvarez, who is a digital designer and is currently part of the IGT company, which stands for International Game Technology. Not only is she able to use her digital designing skills in games, but throughout many other digital forms. She took on a creative and bold career path that led her to many opportunities and experiences to develop where she stands in this career today. I was very grateful to be able to interview her and to listen to what she had to say as a digital designer. Here are my takeaways and what I learned.
Making the Decision
Krystle describes being a digital designer as a “huge umbrella.” She walked into the technology industry as one of the only females in the studio and as a very young person. Her decision to become this career started when she learned how to code at a young age. She explored this creative and digital path further in high school by writing several websites and creating a few animations. She accepted an internship from Disney to work on back-end development, such as working on servers and code language. After this experience, she learned she did not want to do back-end development and learned front-end development and front-end design was more important to her because it would allow her to freely express anything she wanted to design and create. She experienced working as a web/graphic designer at UW Ethnic Cultural Center where she focused on visual design. For example, creating posters, t-shirts, and CD’s for diverse ethnic student groups. Graduating from college, she accepted another internship from Nintendo, focused on development/web experience. She became more curious about not only the marketing aspect, but the way a game is played, the game pipelines and the artwork. Working as part of GameHouse surely gave her an understanding of how games work. Her experiences throughout motivated her to make the decision to become this career.
Experiencing the Process
The process and experience of making her way into the industry was un-traditional because she already uncovered how to create websites when she was younger. She felt lucky to be part of an Internet Boom Era that helped her to get an early start. She learned how valuable experiences were and how education was not the only thing that could support her. At some point, she worked three jobs to gain more experience in the digital field and went to countless internships. Her process included many opportunities, including being with people in different digital areas that made her recognize what areas she may not enjoy. She also faced many discouragement in becoming this career. “There were some people who didn’t want me to become a game artist…I’ve actually had experiences where people tell me to my face ‘You can’t do it,’ ‘you’re not able to accomplish this.’ Or ‘You shouldn’t apply for that because you’re not good enough.’ And I think as being a woman, right, being a minority, it just gives you more motivation to prove them wrong.” She continued working on herself and creating goals that go beyond expectations in order to open infinite opportunities and to be trusted with more responsibilities.
(Screenshot of Krystle’s recent animation)
Working with Others
Now she works with many kinds of people who support games before it is released. Game producers are those who collect information about a game, upcoming dates, the types of studios, and milestones that are required to be reached. She works with artists, in which they create designs and artwork from other digital designers like her. Digital designers create a plan of what something will look like. There are engineers who hook the context together and check that everything is functional. Finally, there are QA people who go into different scenarios to test a product. “Whether it’s a website or whether it’s a game, whether it’s marketing material, there’s a whole pipeline that’s in place, that everyone is collaboratively working out within a group.” However out of all the people she works with, the most important role is the lead/supervisor. They are in charge of a team to make sure everyone is responsible with their task and deadlines are met. They work with producers and leads in other departments to ensure a plan is going well. They will also hold a direct report that will link back to a director.
Everyday Life
Her everyday life as a digital designer is always different because her day relies on the kinds of projects and the deadlines she is given. One day, she might focus on animation, some days, working on approvals of layouts and design, and another maybe analyzing marketing material. She works throughout the day with her team and attends team meetings that happen early in the morning. She attends stand-ups, where her team members and her discuss their status and each what they work on, including the challenges from completing the project. It can be very stressful when you only have a few days to keep working, which causes her to stay up late on some nights. But it is very important to keep going because you have a team who depends on you to do your part.
Things You Enjoy
Although it can be challenging on some days, Krystle enjoys working in different areas in this career the most. Because although she is not an illustrator, she grew up admiring art and loved to play games. After more experience in design, she wanted to learn working in games and production because of her experience working with Nintendo in college. She was able to work on websites, marketing and be inspired by art with Mario. She also open a Photoshop and recognize the way many assets were split and how the different layers came along. Another area she enjoys is working with engineers. She wondered how animation and motion was put together, which made her move from static design into motion design/graphic. She also looks into the area of artists and illustrators, where she learns to create different assets from a digital designer and learn to put it into a layout, motion, or animation. She learns from studios in the making process by looking at past games and how they supported a game.
Things You Do Not Like
Despite loving to continue learning in different areas, she does not like the fast paced environment because of how stressful it can be. Although she enjoys working for games, it can be hard having budgets and timelines. The group management creates promises when a game is released, which affects the time you have to work on a game. Sometimes it can lead to having your ideas and plans not be used. And games possibly being canceled after working extremely hard for it to be released. Most of the time your work environment changes and software is always changing. It can be challenging to keep track of the latest trends with software. “One game might be a hit, the next day it might not.” As well as facing studio closures. She has experienced being laid off on her job countless times because of the competitiveness in the industry.
(Screenshot of the Slot Cabinet Design for Mystical Mermaid. Krystle took part in
sketching and creating the 3D model from the design.)
Problem-Solving through Challenges
Still there are ways to problem-solve through these situations. One way is to continue training yourself with up-to-date software. “Training is always important as a digital designer because there’s always techniques and methods to do something…Sometimes it takes one artist to do something in an hour, if you can do it half the time, it’s even better because that means you make more revenue for your company and get things done faster.” Another way is dedicating time in your day to watch tutorials, read, or interact with recent software. Especially during studio closures, networking in the industry is very important because you find people who can introduce you to opportunities. She mentions to us, especially to junior artists, to look into Linkedin, which is a website for many professionals. You can see other people’s career paths in this industry and people’s portfolios as well.
Qualities to Build and What to Have
She believes it’s important to build a portfolio to showcase your projects and your unique skills. Those skills might be illustration, animation, design techniques or all of them. Team collaboration is an important quality and communication, especially, written communication. “Written communication goes a long way because you need to be in contact with different departments, different studios, be able to physically write out your intention when you’re talking to your supervisors, pretty much everyone. And to dissect what you’re trying to relate to your team.” Being willing to learn and develop your skills is another important quality because of the changes in software. “When I started, I started first with web and design, and then after that mobile rolled out. Everything has to be responsive and be smart depending on the type of screen you’re looking at…the software we used back then, now there’s so many different versions that come out and there’s always updates, so it was really important to keep ahead of the game and always learn as much as you can.” It’s crucial to be willing to put yourself through changes and find strategies to work through that change.
Inspiration to Continue Working
When finding inspiration, Krystle is inspired by seeing new games released and the levels of graphics that come along than when she was younger. She talks about a moment when she played Super Nintendo with her son and was inspired seeing the creative details that were in the game and the way the game felt so real. She is also inspired by AI artworks because of all the boundaries it extends and the style of virtual reality. She finds inspiration in visual effects and animation from Disney movies and by different people’s portfolios. “I was looking at a portfolio that someone had created and it was for one of the Avengers movies. I thought it was just really inspiring to go through all the different scenes and it just really blew me away.”
(Screenshot of Krystle’s recent animation)
What You Believe is Most Important to Know
The most important thing to know about this career is that your talent is not the only thing that will support you entering the industry. “Some of the best artists are actually passed up because someone shows eagerness or someone shows the eagerness to learn, to want to grow. A lot of artists who feel that they know it all will not get very far.” She explains it’s important to be humble, a continuous learner, be open-minded and represent that you value the goal of successfully working for a team. It’s important to be persistent when you feel like your part of working in the team is not valued. “If you show commitment to the industry and your commitment to the game and your passion, that surpassed everything that matters.” She shares the importance of commitment taking you further than you may expect when in doubt.
Technology Industry Today
What Kyrstle has observed in this industry is that there is a fair amount of female representation. Many women are now coming into the industry as leads. “Growing up, I’ve seen such a…I’ve seen a different balance where it’s pretty much men dominated. You know the whole tech industry and being the only girl in the whole studio.” Many young adults interested in this field have been welcome and are entering to explore various careers. She supports those incoming young adults by being open to emails, calls, messages who ask for advice. She answers questions similar to the questions I ask her in our interview, “How did you get started in this industry?” “What does it take to become certain roles?” She puts a lot of effort in giving them the right information to support these incoming artists figuring out their career path in the quick paced technology industry.
Influencing People’s Lives
A digital designer has a significant impact on the community. They can create communication, ideas for people to see and control how people will feel. Krystle gives an example of an action from digital designers impacting others. “The few minutes they talk about halftime during the superbowl. Every second counts because you have a digital designer, production artists, pretty much a whole collaboration team working to get that visual effect perfect.” She addresses the importance of creating an emotion you want to send to the audience.
(Screenshot of Pink Diamond Free Games where Krystle completed the UI and layout.)
Information and Advice to Future Digital Designers
To people who are thinking of taking a similar career, be a true artist/designer. She encourages everyone to find their style and understand there is no straight way in being the perfect artist. Experiences are precious and recognize the ones that can give you opportunities, including those experiences that are not paid at all. To know you are in the right company/organization to work for, realize how other workers treat you, your values, and how the culture feels surrounding it. In addition, put yourself in community projects. When you put yourself into the community, you expand your network with people who have the same interests. The internet acts as your friend. She motivates you to be inspired with creative designs, tutorials and game engines to begin producing. You can also search for local design agencies and game studios where you can job shadow and support local projects. The size of your personal project does not matter or who it is for. Be confident in your specialty and show it proudly. Lastly, she advises you to be a digital designer for the right reasons because you need to be able to enjoy the process of working towards your goal.
This interview with Krystle May was very successful. It allowed all of us to learn about a digital and creative path, where you can continuously create whatever comes to your imagination or how your team visualizes a product to look. On the other hand, we were able to hear real life experiences from a digital designer throughout her career and hear about her experiences before becoming an artist. “As a creative person, spread your wings and venture out.” Will you be the next digital designer entering the technology world?
Sources
Krystle May Alveraz
https://krystlemaya.wixsite.com/website/
