Jovana Obrknezevic
Jovana Obrknezevic is currently completing her last few weeks of study for a BA in multimedia design at Greenside Design Center in Johannesburg, South Africa, a private university that specialises in Design. From a young age Jovana was interested in art and through her life she has done ceramic sculpture and excelled in art through high school earning high marks for her paintings and other numerous works. Jovana then decided to further her skills by combining her love of art with the fast paced digital world of design and today near the end of her studies, she is a capable graphic designer, animator and illustrator among other traits that fall under the vast umbrella of multimedia design. She has never been afraid of trying new things, experimenting with mediums and finding ways of making her work authentic and original even if this means that her chosen route is far harder.
Jovana has gained experience through her studies and has interned at some of the top design agencies in South Africa, these include Ogilvy South Africa and a production agency called Red Pepper Productions where she was the project manager of a team working on a public service announcement to raise awareness in children about littering and how trash can be recycled and used to make interesting house hold objects, in this case it was a light. This particular advert was made using stop frame animation, one of Jovana's specialities and she executed it without fault. The advert was later aired on television and the production company now seeks more work from Jovana’s team as the T.V station was very impressed with the quality and creativity of the work.
Jovana has worked on various live projects over the years, dealing with real life clients and through this she has gained a lot of experience. She was asked to create a web site for an Interior Design organisation called IID as well as rebrand a whole restaurant franchise chain named Doppio Zero, here she had to create a touch screen training system for the staff, rebrand and repackage the identity of the restaurant as well as create a mobile phone application and a fully working interactive website that would be easily edited by the managers of the restaurant.
Jovana also made a calendar illustration for The Bank of Athens and is currently working on various freelance jobs in all of which she is rebranding the identities of various businesses.
Jovana is looking to move on in life and experience as much as she possibly can that will help her and her work grow and is interested in working and living in her hometown Belgrade. She is very passionate and always ready to learn. She loves graphic and packaging design and she enjoys illustration of children’s books a lot. Jovana is always experimenting with different mediums and is currently busy completing a music video which is filmed in stop frame photography where a man she made out of plasticised moulding clay interacts with a real world environment.
Jovana is full of new ideas and is good at conceptualising and solving design related problems to best convey the message the client wishes to convey. She is eager and filled with young and fresh ideas and gets inspired by the world around her and can’t wait to unleash her creativity in Belgrade.
Kyle Reynolds
Kyle Reynolds is a young multimedia designer with the passion for motion graphics and animation. While completing his three-year BA Degree at Greenside Design Center in Johannesburg, South Africa, he completed several internships, including Ogilvy Africa, where he had to work within a conceptualizing team to think of fresh ideas, as-well as at Red Pepper Productions where he was the lead animator in the creation of a public service announcement to be aired on one of South Africa’s main TV channels, ETV.
Although passionate about design as a whole, Kyle’s abilities are not only limited to motion graphics and animation. While in high school, Kyle was the head technician at a computer store, repairing, upgrading and selling computers, while dreaming of becoming a designer. During the course of Kyle’s college degree, he found several freelance jobs to help build up his portfolio. This included the full branding of a new media company (business cards, web sites, animated screens), data capturing, and a promotional video dvd for an educational company.
Kyle wastes no time in conceptualizing when receiving a new brief. “If the first idea you have will never ever be the idea you go through with, you might as-well start conceptualizing from the start, to get all those really bad ideas out the way first.”
Although very capable in graphic design, Kyle finds more inspiration from animation. He has built several websites, designed posters and flyers for rock bands as-well as drawings, paintings, packaging design and illustration.
During his studies, he worked on projects for several live clients. Including a website for the interior design corporation IID, a calendar for The Bank Of Athens, and the full branding of the restaurant chain Doppio Zero, which included web site, mobile phone application, in-store music application, touch-screen kitchen training system and dynamic specials screen.
Kyle enjoys incorporating art mediums into animation, experimenting with camera settings and lenses and making sure that everything is perfect before the post-production starts.
Kyle is inspired by work that is creative and conceptually pleasing, because sometimes the idea behind the message is stronger than the medium used to convey the message. “Simple ideas can become distorted through complex executions, it is the conceptualizing that is the key-component in communicating a message, or several messages.”
Although the design industry in South Africa is growing rapidly, Kyle is moving his career path towards Europe, starting with Belgrade, Serbia. The reason for this is because Kyle wishes to be closer to the trends and inspirations of design that lead the world.
Kyle’s passion for creativity expands across many spheres including music. He played in several bands that were very successful in South Africa and is currently working on a music video using stop-frame photography animation.
Kyle is open to new ideas and willing to work on almost any brief, even the most out-of-this-world concepts as it is authenticity and uniqueness that drives his work.