self employed or in an architectural office ?

[ingo]

Hi all,

 

since i intend to move away from Hamburg i like to know how you guys (and girls ???) out there are employed and if there is a something like a trend.

Are you working in an architectural office or do you work in a 3D company or self employed ? Here in Hamburg nearly 80% of architectural 3D is made by selfemployed people like me, and the market hasn`t changed that much the last years. 3D renderings are still something people see as extra costs first, or only to please their ego Only a very few architects knew the potential of 3D modelling and rendering while they plan a project.

So how is your experience ?

 

ingo

(desperatly writing his resumes )

 

www.im-graphics.com

[STRAT]

left school 14 years ago in UK here.

 

trained as architectural technician for 2 years. This was a 1 day a week college course, 4 days in an architectural firm.

 

left 3 years l8r to set up cg beurux with partner doing cg architecture for local clients.

 

money was good, jobs were plentiful, but lifestyle, social life, girlfriends, normal friends, any life atall just didn't exist. absolutely not.

 

got pissed off with that, had a bust up with my collegue, so left it. (it then collapsed soon after).

 

got my current job 5 years ago with Wales's biggest firm of architects (only about 75 staff).

I'm the only 3d guy in the firm and i do all their 3d visuals.

 

in the UK most architects have a small in-house cg contingency these days, so if you can get in you be set up nicely but there IS still plenty of work here for freelancers, only freelancers have to give up any life they have to be honest. And the money isn't brilliant for the work you putting in.

 

[edit]

 

i personally wouldn't change my job for the world.

i get nice buildings to work on, i'm basically my own boss, i got 2 nice fast(ish) pc's where every one else has 1, i can chat and drink coffee and mess around with my collegues all day, it's only a 5 min train trip from my house, my room over looks a marina development and loads of nice girlies walking past all day and to top it off i'm paid for it too!

 

my perfect job

 

[edit]

 

[ October 28, 2002, 07:44 AM: Message edited by: STRAT ]

[ingo]

Thanks for your great reply.

 

>>money was good, jobs were plentiful, but lifestyle, social life,

>>girlfriends, normal friends, any life atall just didn't exist.

 

Lets see : money is bad, nearly no jobs, but the rest is the same

 

Now you know why i like to move. Of course the UK is high on my list since i know a few people in London i worked with at Alsop+Stoermers Hamburg office. So maybe some blind resumes to some of the not so large offices would be a nice idea.

 

>>...... my perfect job

 

Sounds great, tell me when you quit your job

 

ingo

[Enginz-01]

Hi there,

 

Interresting topic.

Here in Montreal, Canada. 3D is going good. Hard to get money for 3d study on projects. We are around 30 personnes...2 girls. The market is not saturated on 3D freelancer since the gaming and broadcast industry is using 85% of 3d skills. I'm working for this firme www.dfsarch.com for 2 years. The probleme here is people are doing there 3D in Autocad and that is a shame. I'm the 3D wiz selling good 3D design and animation but they are really, really septique of what will be the result. They think that hand rendering sells better. But with my work they are considering having better budget for 3D. I think construction industry move more slowly than other fields and 3D will be a standard in 5 years. So everybody, stay patient. Charge good fees to get respect of your work. We are professional of drawings. Charge plug-ins to clients when required. If they do not agree ask them to see someone else. Mostly of the time they don't have time to look for someone else.

 

I could talk for long here but I will not. Don't forget we are changing the practice.

I'm a Architectural technicien, 2D&3D animator and Architect.

 

Salutation. Peace bros.

[ingo]

>>The market is not saturated on 3D freelancer since the gaming and broadcast industry is using 85% of 3d skills.

 

Thats an interesting point, seems that most 3D'lers dont like to work in architecture because it is too boring, i guess.

 

stay cool

 

ingo

staying patient

[Paul Griger]

Self employed for 2.5 years now.

 

And yes, there are pros and cons to being self-employed.

 

Cons:

1. have to do all the bookwork

2. have to worry about paying quarterly taxes and all the other taxes the gov’t extracts from me

3. have to carry liability ins, ins for my office, my equipment, etc…

4. pay lease each month for office space

5. work is never off your mind. Working on weekends or late nights very typical. Moving the office out of the house made that happen less which is good

6. sometimes money can be feast or famine

7. if something is wrong, can’t blame it on anyone else, I’m the fall guy.

8. and an employee, with his taxes, equipment, payroll, insurance, training, etc.. I’ve actually have scaled it down to just myself recently.

 

Pros:

1. can write off a lot of fun equipment for tax reasons

2. work is on my mind a lot, but my work is fun, so no worries typically

3. can make more money than working for someone else.

4. if something turns out spectacular, it’s my name associated with it and no one else.

5. and of course I can take off whenever, come into work whenever, almost total freedom in schedule unless I have an appointment w/a client

 

I started the biz just doing the design aspect of it. I have recently started doing rendering because I’m a bit bored w/the residential architectural style around here, to reduce liability issues and because it’s fun. The architectural style is mostly cookie-cutter classical revivals mish-mashed into one horrible ½ acre parcels subdivision. Everybody’s scared of anything different. I have received one commission that I am working on that is very exciting and different, so the other design jobs that I have received since then have really paled in comparison.

 

Originally posted by STRAT:

but lifestyle, social life, girlfriends, normal friends, any life atall just didn't exist. absolutely not.

well none of that has changed notably to me since starting my biz now that it is up and running.

 

The only thing to change in the last few years is the girlfriends thing, but I don’t think that my wife of three years now would be big on me having an active social life w/girlfriends

[kid]

I used to work in an office/morgue, and study but I couldn't stand it anymore so I left. It was getting a bit ridiculous anyway because I was studying, working in the office, and doing odd freelance work aswell. Didn't leave much time for sleep.

 

Now I study and do odd freelance work, I'm doing some game industry stuff at the moment because architecture is so boring

[nisus]

Hi Ingo,

 

I'll sketch out a bit of the situation of architectural visualisation in Belgium in a personal point of view of course:

 

In Belgium, many architectural firms have an in-house renderer/visualiser, not really because they need one, but basicly because it's cheap and it's a trendy new way to show off clients.

These artists - mainly graduated architectural students / visualisers wannabees - work at extremely low price because they still run an architectural trainee ship and don't know anything about the real cost of life. In fact they don't learn the job as an architect, but are paid to 'learn 3d' - most of them only had a few 3d-courses and lack the devotion to self-education - and so are very well willing to work long hours (to get just a little bit more pay because they work more hours).

 

As clients don't know what is possible in architectural visualisation today, they only jump on the hype-train staged by architects who want to show off with 'trendy (but empty)' images.

To be honest, not many architects themselves know what is possible, or if they do think it costs more than a fortune, or even worse think it can be achieved very quick at hardly no cost at all.

 

What I'm trying to say is that there is simply no need for stunning images unless you know the few clients who definately wants them at a good price.

For simple to moderate images their are plenty of students, graduates, trainees who undercut the market. And if one of these tries to move along (and start as a freelancer or so) new freshly graduated persons will take there place.

This is of course not a problem because some clients will always go for the cheapest solution, but this means that it's hardly impossible to keep clients when you decide to change your situation, or in other words: almost every step is a big risk.

Anyway, the market seems to be saturated with really ugly, extremely basic images that somehow seem to please clients...

 

The few who escape this and are running their own company suffer hard times, especially because the market is seriously undercut, employees (3d-artists) expect high rates of payment and clients are getting moderate images at almost no cost.

 

The main thing for companies to focus on is to do the few things that students/trainees etc. can't do by themselves i.e. make movies or work at very tight deadlines from within a team. It's just another slice of the market of course, but nicer to be in if you ask me.

 

I hope this helped you out somehow.

 

rgds

 

nisus

[ingo]

Originally posted by Kid:

 

>>It was getting a bit ridiculous anyway because I was studying,

>>working in the office, and doing odd freelance work aswell.

 

Australian students...cheech. No standing, give them a sixpack of Fosters or XXXX or whatever and they are not able to handle only three different jobs

 

Originally posted by nisus:

 

>> I hope this helped you out somehow

 

OK, no resumes to Belgium

 

Well the situation with the students is a little bit better here in Germany, because they are mostly interested in architecture and many of them do 3D just for fun and not to earn money. And when one of them tries to get into the 3D market and worked nearly 24 hours a day to get a picture finished on a tight deadline, he didn't survive very long.

 

grtgs

 

ingo

[nisus]

lol, I was just going to ask if you were interested for a job in Belgium as we are running very short of hands...

 

rgds

 

nisus

[ingo]

Originally posted by nisus:

lol, I was just going to ask if you were interested for a job in Belgium as we are running very short of hands...

Well, i can send you some hands Would be nice though to jump on my Motorcycle and make a nice tour to Belgium for some work.

 

greetings

 

ingo

[ingo]

Ok , since this experience exchange is over it looks like half of us 3D cg architect artists technicans is self employed and the other half is working in an architects office, and the last half are students doing both. Lets see how that changes in the next years.

 

ingo

www.im-graphics.com

 

NISUS: I still haven't found your job offer in the mail

[nisus]

Hi ingo,

 

I'll mail you

 

rgds

 

nisus