Vantaggi
-Abundance of talent on the art team to learn from and connect with. Some great characters, and everyone brings something unique to the table. I really want to emphasize how wonderful it is to work with such dedicated artists. Made some great friends here. -Advance your career quickly by working on a myriad of projects. Your resume will be pretty full by the end of it. -I've worked on a handful of projects that I was genuinely stoked to work on. -Flexible hours of work, and leniency for appointments or extended breaks (if not abused). -Competitive salary.
Svantaggi
-Clear favoritism toward certain artists. -Projects are a little stale and repetitive for the most part, largely because they are outsourced from the UK studio. -Constant changing of management, management style and expectations. Means you never really know where you stand. Your performance could remain consistent but will receive wildly different reactions from month to month due to shifting goalposts. -Burnout. This company has a lifespan of about 2-3 years before you start flagging due to creative exhaustion. -Few employees based in Vancouver, making socializing and events difficult. -The bar of expectation is always being shifted based on who they deem is giving the most to the company. For example; an artist will join the studio that is excited enough that they voluntarily train and study for hours after a full work day to develop skills specific for the company. Suddenly, everyone will be pressured to do the same. Not everyone wants to finish an 8hr work day of painting and then continue painting, but that is absolutely an expectation. Even if they can't call it overtime, or training. -Some artists get an abundance of training time; others get none. Supposedly everyone gets equal training opportunity but this is absolutely not the case. A lack of training will be considered your own fault, even if you are fully booked with work and cannot get downtime. -Artist voices rarely respected on creative matters. Sometimes producers are given more creative control than artists. -Artists expected to wear multiple hats equally. Be exceptionally talented in art, have excellent project management skills, amazing social and leadership skills, organization skills, admin skills, etc. Management have a hard time understanding that art should be the primary expertise. -Management "trained" in mental health practices and encourage openness and emotional communication but then that info is used against you later in reviews. This is a big one, and one that I was genuinely alarmed by. Some reviews were inappropriate, poorly handled and far too personal to be professional.