Kong Collaborates with Waltham Forest’s Future Creatives

Towards the tail end of 2019, we teamed up with Waltham Forest Borough of Culture to help three creatives – Max Ebden, Eric Nthuku and Lucia Lewis-Janes – gain experience in the animation industry.  The Future Creatives programme provides local young people aged 16 to 25 with networking opportunities and access to work placements in their chosen creative field.

Our main goal was to provide all three candidates with a valuable learning experience over their week-long placements, but we found having fresh blood in the studio was equally inspiring for us too!

Meeting Future Creative, Max Ebden 

We were impressed with Max’s conceptual (and humorous) approach to fashion consumption. “So far, I’ve been drawing up some ideas and visuals in response to a brief from one of Kong’s clients,” – explains our most recent creative, Max Ebden, who graduated with a BA in Illustration from Falmouth University in July 2019. “I’ve enjoyed having a lot of free rein and autonomy over the brief, and I’ve also liked seeing how everything works on a day-to-day level in the studio,”  Max adds.

Using a live pitch, we asked Max to create some sketches for a prospective sustainable fashion brand client that uses hemp instead of cotton. (It’s more durable, so there’s less waste.) We tend to work on Cintiq tablets, so it’s been really interesting to see how younger animators and illustrators are utilising new, more agile technologies to produce work. 

Max explains, “At the moment, I mostly work on the iPad app, Procreate. It’s what most of my peers use and seems to be the up-and-coming way of doing things.” Max’s ambition is to work as a freelance illustrator.  You can check out their mostly narrative, sometimes dark/ surreal and always fantastic creations at Max Ebden Illustration. 

Michael Christov, Future Creatives Project Officer, said of the collaboration to date, “Kong Studios have supported a range of trainees from different backgrounds and ages to develop their animation skills, but also their professional soft skills which are essential to succeeding in the creative sector. It’s great to have support from small businesses in the borough looking to grow their organisation and give back to the next generation of creatives.”

We look forward to welcoming (future) Future Creatives in 2020!