Meet Trista Elizabeth | Motion Designer and Character Illustrator

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

Hi Trista, what role has risk played in your life or career?
A lot of people think risks are dangerous, and by definition, sure, they can be, but I like to view risks from the other side: chance and opportunity. Lately I’ve been relying on risks and chances in my life. Before university, I played my whole life safe and easy, and only took risks if I knew they were going to guarantee me good things. I suppose it was because I didn’t want to risk failure or having to return to square one after putting in so much work. At some point in my life, I hit an all time low, and really had nothing going for me. I couldn’t see anything ahead, and I just didn’t know what to do or where to go. I was in that state for a long while before I found some people who inspired and motivated me to keep going. And well, sometimes when you can’t see anything ahead of you, all you can do is say “F it”, take a step forward anyway, and proceed from there (and I mean that figuratively, not literally if you’re like on a cliff or something).

From that point of my life, I’ve learned to take more risks, and instead of calling them risks, call them chances and opportunities. It didn’t matter to me if I didn’t know the outcome was going to be good or bad, because a step forward is a step forward, no matter how you put your foot out.

There are a few things I like to tell myself when I’m anxious about taking a r̶i̶s̶k̶ opportunity:

1. You’ll never know if you don’t try
2. If life is easy, then you’re not doing it right
3. Everything happens for a reason
4. There’s always something good to learn, even from bad situations
5. The worst they can say is no (big confidence booster fr) (also only applicable in some situations)

The third one may be a little bit specific to my personal religious beliefs actually, but the thought of it can still help even if you’re not religious. It’s the same thing as “trust the process”, I guess.

Everything that has happened in my life made me who I am today, and introduced me to all the people I know and love too. We all learn and grow from the good, the bad, and the useless things we go through in life (I actually did end up using trigonometry in my uni art project, can you believe that??). It’s called experience. To me, taking risks is like an offer from the universe: “Hey, here’s a chance for you to get further in life. Do you want to take it?”. So I just say “F it” and see where it takes me. As long as it’s not harming anyone around me, then there’s nothing to lose. Oh, and shoutout to my mum, who’s the biggest risk taker I know in my life, and keeps pushing me to be the same.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
It’s a complicated story about how I ended up as a motion designer, actually, so I’ll try to keep it short. I’ve been drawing since I was a kid, and my dreams always had something to do with art. In order, they were: art teacher, automotive designer, pastry chef, animator, pastry chef, animator, (and it just kept switching between those two). After too much thinking during university application season, I ended up going to SCAD for animation, because I wanted to keep my love for pastry arts as a hobby.

In my first year of foundation studies in SCAD, I had wayyyy too many breakdowns about whether I made the right choice to study art. Because while art and drawing used to be my stress reliever and hobby, it was starting to become the death of me in uni. So what did I do? I applied to transfer unis and study psychology instead, because I wanted to keep drawing as a hobby. Valid, right? I visited the campus, submitted my application, and got accepted. Then what did I do next? I decided to stay put in SCAD. Why? The main reason was: laziness got the better of me. I didn’t want to bother having to ship all my stuff out to another state, and have to make new friends again when I already had a fun group of friends. That may have been the only time laziness helped me out. The second reason was: my instinct told me to stay, and that there was something still waiting for me (which sounds so fake but I swear I felt it in my guts, man). So I went “Whatever. Let’s just keep going”.

At the start of my second year, I met some more people, and then I got introduced to ✨Motion Design✨. I’m not kidding when I tell you my mind was blown by its existence. I saw it as a way for me to still make art in a new and different way while still keeping drawing as a hobby. So I tried a course. Loved it. Found a passion. Switched majors. And here we are. And up till today, no matter how stressed, burnt out, and dissatisfied I got when creating my motion graphics projects, never once did I ever regret moving to motion design.

Finding out about motion design gave me a new perspective on life, actually. There are still so many things out there to do that we don’t know about. And if we look in the right places, we can find that a lot of them are so much fun to learn even if we don’t immediately get the hang of it the first time. “Your passion shouldn’t be killing you on the inside.” No, I think it should. Nothing’s easy. What makes it your passion is how you respond to it. Do you choose to get up or give up? If you don’t find any bit of enjoyment in it when it gets stressful, then it’s probably not your passion. That’s what my journey taught me anyway. TL;DR, persevere, keep looking, don’t be afraid to try new things, but also don’t forget to take it easy. Good things come with time, they really do.

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?
Ah, if I’m gonna be honest, I’m not a big Savannah lover. I’m a big city kind of person, and Savannah is… not that. But I’m also not lying when I say I’ve still been having fun in this city these past three years. In my opinion, Savannah is good for a few days trip, not a week, because you’ll get bored, especially without a car to get around.

Hmm, I’d say the foods in Savannah are alright, there are some really good ones. Maple Street Biscuit Company is one of them. And asian parents approved too! My parents ate there thrice within a week when they were here in my first year. E-tang has really good Chinese food, and Starland Yard is unique in that it’s a decorated outdoor food court with various different options of foods to choose from. There are also a lot of nice local cafes around Savannah that aren’t Starbucks, such as Foxy Loxy Cafe (and its other chains). PERC Coffee, Savannah Coffee Roasters, etc. Oh, and recently my friends and I have been exploring parks and walking trails around Savannah too (besides Forsyth Park and River Street), like Lake Mayer and Whitemarsh Preserve, and I gotta admit, Savannah’s pretty good when it comes to nature-y things. It’s also nice to just walk around and explore on your own. Go into random stores and surprise yourself with what you find, y’know? You could stumble upon a bookstore with four cats in there, or a cafe that’s themed after Agatha Christie and her novels, you never know.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Hey shoutout to basically everyone I’ve ever known and loved! They made me who I am today, and a little part of every one of them lives in me. Like seriously. I used to hate eggplants, but started liking them when my uni friend cooked some and told me to try it. I get excited when I see anything with Snoopy on it because my high school friend gets excited about Snoopy. I’m literally made up of the people I love.

But if we’re gonna get more specific, shout out to the middle and high school friends who I still contact today even though keeping in touch during the pandemic was hard for us. They saw me through all my eras, and I’m so glad they’re still here no matter how weird I was back then. Shoutout to my uni friends, especially the Indonesian community here, they’re so much fun and supportive, and they introduced me to so many new things that I didn’t know of before coming to uni. They also taught me to be confident and have fun without feeling ashamed. Shoutout to my cousins, and my friends in church who I grew up with, for being with me since day 1. I know that if I ever lose everyone in my life, they’ll still be beside me. Amazing bunch, love them to death. And shout out to my parents too, for pushing me to be more than I already am, because I for sure wouldn’t do it myself if they weren’t here. Oh, a little bonus too, shoutout to Spotify for being my number one app every year. I really can’t live without it; I work, shower, cook, drive, do everything with it. I love you Spotify 💚. And everyone else I mentioned ❤️.

Website: tristalizabeth08.wixsite.com/site

Instagram: @kihoshi_

Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/tristatantri