Meet the Creative Leads: Emmie Bednall, Senior Design Lead
- Aug 18
- 5 min read
We caught up with Emmie to discuss craft, collaboration and inspiration...
No one at Blacklist makes great work alone. Every brief passes through designers, animators, editors, storytellers and makers before it becomes something worth talking about.
Our ‘Meet the Blacklisters’ article series is where we hand them the mic. Our Q&A series sits down with the people behind the work: how they think, how they work, what they bring to the studio…
Q: Hello Emmie, thanks for talking to us. Can you please introduce yourself and tell us about your role at Blacklist?
Hello Blacklist, I'm Emmie and I'm a Senior Design Lead. I oversee any animation or motion graphics jobs with my little team of designers. That includes social posts, animated projects for YouTube, end boards, graphics for promos, projections, DOOH and many more! Basically, if it moves I'm on it.
Q: How did you get into this industry? What has been your journey so far, and have you always wanted to work in this industry?
As a child I either wanted to be a footballer or make cartoons, but I found that school wasn't exactly supportive of either of those careers haha, so it took until my art foundation year to discover that you could do animation courses at university, which I did at Kingston Uni. Following that I floated around as a freelancer animator/designer doing jobs for people like nickelodeon, cbbc, CBeebies and mtv. After doing that for a few years I got a job at Cartoon Network, and following that I moved to Blacklist - phew!
Q: A brief lands on your desk (or Slack!) - now what? How do you first approach a job and what’s the first thing you do?
First thing I like to do is grab the team and we all dissect the brief together, talk through ideas and what would work best. If it's a motion brief I like to have a think about what techniques and methods work best for it and then work on and incorporate a style after that.
Q: How much does a piece of creative evolve over time? From the first initial thoughts all the way through to final delivery, how much do you chop and change things along the way?
I think it depends on the creative itself, most of the jobs we have usually stay quite true to the original concept through to the final delivery. Any changes usually come from limitations; if something isn't working technically and we can't find a work around then we can change it. But we try our best to keep all our work as close as possible to the original idea.
Q: How do you know when a piece of work is feeling right, and how do you know whether something needs to be scrapped and started again?
You often realise fairly quickly when a piece of work isn't working, but sometimes will just keep pushing it to see if something clicks with it. It's just a vibe and if the vibe is not vibing then it's time to scrap it. I've worked on projects for a couple of days before deciding it's not working and needs to be scrapped altogether, it can be disheartening, but I think it's such a good feeling when you start fresh and find something that works and it ends up working really well, some of my favourite projects have ended up as a result of that!
Q: Collaboration sits at the heart of what we do. How do you work with other creative leads across the company, to shape an idea into something tangible?
I love working with the other guys! I think it's really important to find creative people that match each other's visions and you can understand where they're coming from on a creative level, when you have that the work becomes so much fun. I find as well, this makes it much easier to shape an idea into something tangible, because you're leaning on everyone's strengths and pushing each other creatively, there's no egos and no-one to claim an idea as their own.
Q: Looking back at your time at Blacklist, which project are you most proud of - and what made it such a memorable one?
We're so lucky at Blacklist because we get to work with some of our absolutely favourite brands, I love Pokémon and I love the work we do for them, but if I had to choose a single project it's not Pokémon, it's Beano! We worked on an adult skewing style guide for them and I absolutely loved what we came up with using the limitations set in place by Beano. Not only the designs and the character work but how the guide looked itself, it was a really fun project and also goes to show it's not always the big flashy things that are the best. Although I do still get hyped seeing the work on Piccadilly Lights, knowing it's gone from my tiny desktop screen to something 20,000x the size is impressive!
Q: Every creative has their influences. What’s inspiring you right now - whether that’s design, film, music, architecture, gaming, fashion, or something completely unexpected?
I love horror films and I love that this year has already had a bunch of great horrors released, what I like even more is young directors getting their chance to shown off their skills and it paying off. I find that really inspiring. I also love looking at fan art dedicated to horror films, that spurs me on to join in.
Q: Technology and tools are evolving faster than ever. How has your craft changed over the last few years, and what’s exciting, or challenging you most about where things are heading?
My perfect use of tools and technology is the social media aspect - with creators showing me tips and tricks in after effects, photoshop, etc that I never knew and then can take on in my own work. I think sharing tips is invaluable and they're all right there while you're scrolling, that's so exciting! I'm fairly old haha and I never had anything like that when I was starting out, so it's nice to see there's almost endless resources out there for everyone no matter the level.
Q: What’s one piece of advice you’d give to the next generation of creatives looking to build a career in this industry?
Just show enthusiasm for your work. I love when people want to do their absolute best because of the love of the work, no matter what it is.
Q: And finally… how do you eat your chocolate digestive biscuit?
Dunked in milk then chocolate side up.
