‘Don’t become a DINOSAUR!’

Syed Ali Asad Jafri has been a graphic designer and 3D animator for around 11 years now. He has worked with major studios across Pakistan on projects pertaining to advertising, broadcast and film.
“It’s been a long journey. I’ve spent countless nights working towards reaching the finish line,” Jafri said in an interview. He said he has been involved in both art and the technical side of animation.
“I’ve done storyboards, character designs, character rigs, animation and visual effects. I’ve also worked as a designer, animator, technical director, teacher, manager and team lead,” he added.
Jafri said he is “one of the few people in Pakistan that can merge art with technical knowledge.” He co-founded the animation company Inverse Studios and also teaches at the Iqra University.
He said he began considering a career in art and advertising around the age of 12. “A friend of mine introduced me to Photoshop 2.0, as I had a great passion for drawing,” he said. His parents wanted him to choose Arabic as an elective subject in school, but he chose drawing.
Talking about how he developed an interest in art and advertising, he said he loved watching Disney cartoons and reading comic books. He then wanted to create his own characters. “It was a long process of self-education,” he said.
Jafri terms “patience, perseverance and keeping an eye on the larger picture” as his keys to success. He said he did not have a role model during his early days. “I just wanted to create what I saw in films and TV programmes,” he added.
He said when he started his career, his seniors gave him the cold shoulder and avoided teaching him what he needed to know. “Finally, I found the best teacher anyone could ever have: books. I have a huge collection of them,” he added.
The things he enjoys the most about his job is “the friendly people I meet along the way and all the good memories, the laughter and working as a unit to do something great, and the excitement and pure joy one feels after achieving the seemingly impossible.”
Jafri said one of the most common myths regarding creative directors is that they are Hitlers. “Though, it all depends on the personality and what people have experienced in their past,” he added.
He said some supervisors give a hard time to their subordinates because they themselves were treated the same way or maybe they just love being a pharaoh. “My view is that if you love people, people will love you,” he added.
He said if someone is good at art, it is because they have good observation skills plus a visual library in their head. “Art schools polish the artist that is already inside you, and I recommend them to anyone who has a passion for it,” he added.
Jafri said there was not much when he had started out, but things have drastically changed now. “I wish I had seniors like myself to teach and guide me. I wish we had then the facilities that we have today,” he added.
He said for him, it was like “fighting a war with little or no ammunition”, and now people have a better chance of survival and a better future if they are disciplined enough to work for achieving their dreams.
When asked if Pakistani institutions are playing any role in providing proper training or making perfect artists, he said, “I think some of them are playing a positive role. There is no such thing as a perfect artist, though. The only perfect artist I know of is God. Other artists evolve and continuously strive for perfection.”
He said if someone already has the talent for art, they should go to art school to polish their skills and to have their work critiqued so that it could be improved and they could network with people in the industry.
Talking about the future, he said as an artist, his focus is to grow, learn and be the best he could be within limited resources. “I try not to think much about the future because the only certain thing in life is death,” he added.
To aspiring artists, Jafri said: “No matter how bad things become, pick yourself up and move forward. Adapt, evolve and never become a dinosaur!”