Full Profile
Charlie Pinder - Insight Out 2007
Company: Mook Studios- Business: Animator / Illustrator
- Established: September 2007
- Status: Sole Trader
- Based: Birmingham
- Award: £1200
Wonky World
Like many animators and illustrators her age, Charlie Pinder has a certain fondness for the surreal. After founding and naming Mook Studios after one of her characters in September 2007 as an outlet for her quirky Flash-based animations, Charlie has used her designs across a range of products including toys and greeting cards. "I found that I had loads of bizarre, wonky characters running around my brain," says Charlie on her reasons for founding the company, "So decided to wrestle some out of my brain and into the world!"
How does she intend to wrestle these characters out of her brain? Well, with a background in computer science, Charlie seems enthusiastic about the opportunities that new media presents. My work is primarily animation across the web and mobile phones, as well as wallpapers, flat design and 2D," she says. "I've also made some little toy products and greeting cards as well from my designs."
Urbanites
So what market does she see for this diverse product range? Is she looking to sell her ideas as intellectual property to commercial clients or sell her products directly to the public? "Both I guess," says Charlie. "It's a mix between trying to get clients and selling directly to the public."Target consumer-wise, Charlie has a clear picture of her ideal customer: "An urbanite with money, a job, is interested in new media, and does a lot of social networking. They may be interested in a lot of environmental issues too."
"I'll target people who do a lot of social networking and have a sense of humour, hopefully someone who will like my sense of humour and not be offended by my sense of humour!" jokes Charlie.
"I want to be ethical; source local, ethical manufacturers for my products and don't want to rip anybody off," says Charlie when asked about her ideals, "There is also a strain of militant vegetarianism in some of my products, so it kind of feeds into that! I'm going to convert everybody...through animation!"
Don't Be Scared
Faced with the challenge of getting Mook Studios off the ground, Charlie applied to Insight Out 2007. "It was really nice to meet all the other people [on the course], we had action learning sets, and it's always good to be able to explore your ideas with your peers," she says. The Insight Out action learning set days are peer initiated problem solving sessions where each person's business idea can be shared and explored amongst the group.
The course also helped Charlie get an understanding of business concepts often all to alien to creative folk, "It just gave me a better grasp of what's involved in running my own business," she says. "For instance, you don't have to be scared of the finance side, you just need to be organised."
The Next Step
Having successfully completed the Insight Out programme, how does Charlie now plan to grow Mook Studios into a self-sustaining freelancing business? In an industry heavily reliant on networking, Charlie's first priority is getting herself noticed: "I need to redesign my website, start getting some of my products out there, and hopefully I'll be able to produce some animations that are good enough to send off to festivals," she says. "I might do a bit of freelancing around the West Midlands to get to know the creative industry too," concludes Charlie, "Because my background is as a Computer Scientist, the stuff I do is both design and tech based. So another thing I'll look at is creating some Flash games."
David Allen
Work Examples
Core Values
"An ethical business with a strain of militant vegetarianism."
www.mookstudios.co.uk