Meet Axiom Design | 3d Artist & Animator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Axiom Design and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Axiom, is there something that you feel is most responsible for your success?
I’d like to say my incredibly charming personality (kidding), but I think the most important factor to success in any field is luck. Luck and the skill to take advantage of that luck. It’s kind of a cop-out to be sure, what with luck being entirely out of your control, but the thing that you can control is your own skill in whatever you decide to pursue. Without that skill, all of those opportunities and chance-encounters pass you by. You know, being at the right place in your life and experience at the right time. In all honesty, I think that’s the only way I’ve gotten where I am. I’ve just been incredibly lucky, and I happened to put something out at the right time, or something I’ve made resonated with others without that being the sole intent of a piece.

When you put yourself and your work out there, it all comes down to luck whether or not it does well, as cynical as that sounds. Sometimes I can put months of my life into a project that I deeply care about, only for it to recieve a mum response, while another day I’ll put out a project that I spent a couple hours on during your free time and it recieves all the praise in the world. You can never really tell when you’re working on something how it’s going to do. All you can really do is put yourself out there and keep giving yourself those opportunities for luck to do its thing. You can’t really win if you don’t play the game.

That’s not to say that you can put out terrible work and rely on luck to become an overnight success, but that if you’re consistiently trying to put out work that you’re passionate about and quality, people will take notice of it. It might not be the first time, second, fifth or tenth, but if you keep playing your very best hand every time, eventually life’s gonna give you a win. Just don’t let it get to your head, and keep pushing to create something even better than before.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I guess the genre my work is best associated with is Outrun (and to a lesser degree, Vaporwave). Outrun is defined as a retro-focused genre that’s a bit hard to explain. The best way to explain it, I think, is that feeling you get while driving the roads at night when no one is around. Just you and the open road. While these genres are commonly tied to different eras (i.e. 80’s and 90’s), with my work, I largely try to avoid tropes and motifs from a given era. Instead, trying to evoke a feeling of timelessness and pensive tranquility. The kind of tranquility that you’d get while driving those roads at night. While the genre is also a bit automotive focused, I think that the aspect of travel is what’s key to the art, not so much cars. So I try to implement that in my work, whether it be something abstract, or a bit literal.
All that being said, I do like to dabble in plenty of other genres as well, but it kinda came to be that my work is most associated with the Outrun community more than anything.

As for how I ended up here, it’s something I kind of fell into, actually. When I first started out, I was still a student in college, so free-time was a bit of a commodity. A lot of that time was spent working on all kinds of projects and pieces for myself, until I kind of opened it up to others. At first it was I was just making artwork for a band my friends and I were in, but I started dipping my toe into online communities and offering up commissions for other people. I didn’t think myself very experienced at the time, so I was charging pretty cheap at the time (probably way less than I should have), but I wasn’t so much doing it for the money and instead more for practice, and a good excuse to have other come up with ideas for me instead!
Around the time I started getting serious into it was around the same time I took a position in the graphic design department of my university. That was a real eye-opening experience for me that really got me understanding how a business works, and how to work in a professional setting and conduct myself as such. Which I kind of carried that into when I moved on to pursing my freelance career. I started valuing my time and experience more, and shifted into treating the sort of “side thing” I was doing for fun into something that could do a bit more for me than pay for lunch every so often. I still have fun with it though!

I’m always trying to find new opportunities to expand my brand as an artist, or find new ways of sharing my work or collaborating with other talented people. I think more than anything though, my focus is on the art. It’s something that I have an immense pride in, especially finding something I’ve made in strange places. I always love hearing people’s stories about where they’ve seen my work, or how it’s made a bit of their lives better, and I hope that continues to happen well into the future. I often stumble upon something I’ve made, posted by someone else, without even looking for it. It’s kind of awesome to see that people enjoy my work enough to post about it, or use it for a video, their music, arcade-stick, or even their entire wall of their room. To think that someone enjoys something you’ve worked on enough to make it a significant part of their lives like that is a great feeling, and hopefully my work continues to be part of it. As cheesy as that sounds!

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I can’t really say for sure. I’m not too big of a fan of where I live (Myrtle Beach), it’s kind of a tourist trap. Moving here wasn’t something that I was especially thrilled with, considering where I was before, Pittsburgh, was more my style. There’s definitely some cool spots around, but since the area is mainly geared for tourists they’re more places that you go to once and then never again since they’re geared around tourists visiting once.

I guess if I had to pick though, the Aquarium is alright. Not the best I’ve been to, but there’s definitely enough fish and cool critters to keep you busy for a few hours. Not to toot my own horn either, but I’m pretty good at mini-golf, and we have a TON of mini-golf courses here.
I definitely gotta give Brookgreen Gardens a mention though, if you’re into sculptures, animals, or just spending time outside, it’s a beautiful place to check out.

As for food, there’s a pretty big selection around here, but apart from one part near the beach, a lot of the restaurants are franchise places and not really many local places. I will say that when I have a hankering for Mexican food, El Cerro is definitely the first place in my mind. There’s also Medieval Times, and I’d be lying if I said I still didn’t love seeing those knights sword fight and joust.

Of course, living near the beach, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that it was there. Myrtle Beach has a beach. If you’re into that sort of thing, it’s pretty fun, but I honestly don’t really know what you’re supposed to actually DO at the beach. Play in the sand? Wade a few feet into the water?
I think I’m maybe a bit cynical about it, but if someone was visiting and hasn’t seen the ocean before, it’s definitely first on the list of places to go.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Definitely my parents. They’ve been supportive of just about every decision (good and bad) I’ve made in my life, and without them I definitely wouldn’t be where I am today. They’re the ones who gave me that kick in the rear to actually dive in and pursue a career in art.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/axiomdesign_/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/axiom_design_

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCA6eGiNfG8yqcER8Xsry-ag

Other: https://www.deviantart.com/axiomdesign

Image Credits
Axiom Design