Nina-Lou Giachetti is one of those creatives who works across several disciplines to create projects that are uniquely her own. Despite growing up on a remote farm in Brittany, France, Giachetti’s parents were heavily into art and gave her a solid cultural base. “I also experimented with a lot of art forms during my childhood, and I always knew I wanted to work in this area,” she says. “I began to specialise in high school, and it was through my graphic design studies that I discovered motion design and I fell in love with it!” 

To develop her passion and hone her skills, Giachetti went on to study for one year at renowned animation school Gobelins. “The most important things I learnt there were the basics of animation, the history of title design and how to work on a range of different projects,” she explains. “It was a really good way to enter the professional world as it prepared me to think of my work in a critical way. I hope to continue to learn though as that’s crucial for my creative process.”

Giachetti enjoys working on music videos and title sequences as they provide a lot of freedom, and the task often leads to fusing ideas with other creative individuals to create something new. Recent projects are varied and include a colourful animated video for Franco-Brazilian artist Yndi’s song Novo Mundo; an animated interview with Cyril Casmèze, an acrobat and circus artist; and a short film called Pony Express about a cowboy buying a new companion.

Though Giachetti enjoys switching visual styles depending on the project, most projects start the same in that the first step for her is to open a blank page and write and scribble on it. 

“I also take a look at museums, books or the internet to develop my first ideas using interesting pieces of art as references,” she says. “I make a moodboard with it, and that can contain photography, object design, architecture. And then I start creating an image that I like and a rough storyboard to begin, it’s the base I always use to construct a project.” 

By combining graphic design, animation and illustration, it gives Giachetti a greater number of creative solutions to follow. “It means you can work with both digital and plastic tools, animation allows you to go deeper into a design, and that allows you to develop a universe or other dimensions through sound and narration,” she explains. “Also, how you choose to animate a project can be based on graphic design rules.”

This is seen in Zoommorphie, which fuses together typography, found imagery and graphic art to create a collage-like animation. Finding a good balance between all of her favourite elements is the key though, as is managing projects that pay the bills and fuel her passions.

“Keeping time to learn and improve my work while staying in touch with people is important,” says Giachetti. “This kind of work requires being multidisciplinary. It’s a complicated way of life but really rewarding too!” 

Creating unexpected worlds for characters to navigate is something Giachetti really enjoys and her advice to fellow creatives is to live in the present.

“Be constant, don’t stay attached to your past failure, have a lot of fun, and find what makes you happy,” she says. “Also be curious and open-minded to every art form to expand your ideas!” 

ninalougiachetti.com