Meet Will Moritz

We were lucky to catch up with Will Moritz recently and have shared our conversation below.

Will, looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?

Creative Pursuits can be such a guiding light in our lives. My entire life I knew I wanted to be an artist. I can remember being around five years old and knowing that I wasn’t that great at drawing yet. But I knew that I had my full childlike imagination. (Children’s TV during the 80’s was big on this type of idea) So five-year-old me set a goal to create 500 characters, that I would draw again when I turned 40, and hopefully by that point I might have a better idea of what the heck this art thing was all about.

Well, I just had my 40th birthday, and I am still not entirely sure about this art stuff. But I think that’s what keeps me coming back to it and chasing it. It’s something that you can never really master. I’ve been pushing myself to get better at it my entire life. I think that each new piece doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be a lesson for the next idea.

Some other big pushes in my life for art have come at very distinct stages and moments. I remember getting into the Govenor’s Honors program for visual arts when I was a Junior in high school. Those seven weeks of making art everyday down in Valdosta GA, was an incredible challenge for myself to find out if this is something I could really keep going with and not get burnt out over for the rest of my life. Those seven weeks ended, and I was still creatively juiced, that’s when I knew I could do this.

Another instance was during my second year living in China. I landed a job as a concept artist at a fairly large animation studio, almost by complete luck or manifest. While in that role, 60 hours a week of work was the law and often times we would find out on Saturday if we needed to come in on Sunday to also work. I was riding my bike three miles each way to work rain or shine each day. And practicing Tae Kwan Doe three nights a week after work.

I was one of the happiest times in my life during that period, because finally my only responsibility in the world each day, was to wake up and go draw. The fast pace working environment and extreme hours really gave me a work ethic, that I don’t think many American artist can keep pace with.

This is something I always try and keep in mind when I am teaching one of my college classes, that I have been doing for the past 10 years. Finding the balance between asking the students to focus on working quickly and at industry speed vs not over-whelming them. In my head, I think “Well I wouldn’t ask anyone to do a project I wouldn’t do or do a project I couldn’t get done in this time and then double the time limit.”

I’ve done every project along with my students for the past 10 years and I hope that demonstration of technique and talking about the creative process is useful for them. I can’t really tell anymore, the students seem less excited and less engaged in the process now. Maybe I’ve just finally become that old guy, barking at them.

So, to wrap this up. I’ve never really stopped making art and I’ve been running towards getting better my entire life. I still don’t think I’m great, but it feels wonderful to be able to sit down and paint a plein-air landscape painting sight un-seen reasonably well, or to really be able to bring to life an idea that I have in my head.

Finally having enough tools in my pocket to understand how to paint my way out of a corner, handle lighting properly, and knowing enough that I don’t know it all and when to reference another artist work for the answer I need.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

Creative Problem Solver? What the heck is that? It sounds like a made-up title from someone on LinkedIn. It totally is, but it’s the best I’ve come up with to explain what I do. In my career I’ve worked at animation studios, motion graphics houses, been a creative direction for gaming studios, financial tech companies, app development companies. I’ve worked for an augmented reality company, and done virtual reality for the CDC, and quite a bit more.

This has not been a linear path through the creative world. And through all of it, I’ve been able to develop a very methodical creative process that helps me to approach any design solution. The outcome really just becomes the brush to paint the idea. It’s the design thinking and process that really helps to keep you working within this field.

Moving into 2025, I am looking to get back into taking on more client work and helping to bring companies or business owners visions to life. Motion graphics, social media marketing campaigns, web extensions and product tie-ins are all within my wheelhouse for delivering creative results that move ideas.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

The first one is easy, when I finally realized I’m good enough to not need to know all the answers, but smart enough to know where to look and who to ask to figure it out.

Next up has got to be one from Ted Lasso – Be Curious! I am generally curious about everything. Look into chemistry and rare gemstone Tik Tok, I don’t know where people got the idea that being creative always need to be about your feelings. Those will always be there in your work. I think being curious about the world and communicating those discoveries through that you create has a lot of value to people.

Learn to talk about contracts! Oh my gosh, art school will teach you all about process and method. But it doesn’t teach you how to negotiate an idea. Your business school buddies from high school, learned some great lessons over there four years. Getting comfortable in that space, will help you keep your sanity and the client relationship healthy and productive.

Alright, so before we go we want to ask you to take a moment to reflect and share what you think you would do if you somehow knew you only had a decade of life left?

Portrait of an Artist as a Not so Young Man! I’ve checked off most of the early goals off my list of things I wanted to accomplish in the design world. I’m still hunting for the Chick-fil-a commercial work. That’ll complete my Atlanta bingo card. Or to get to work with Taco Bell. I’ve designed three commercial projects for them as example projects for my students over the years!

But, really I’ve done a lot for other people’s ideas, and a lot to help the next generation grow their creativity and get good at this stuff.

I’d like to make something. I think we are on our screens to much, I know I am.

I’d like to create a boutique hotel that is mixed with a single artist residency. Inviting different artist to come and stay for 6 months, with a studio in front of hotel window. As they create, the paintings begin to decorate the walls of the rooms and the hotel lobby. The hotel would keep a percentage of the sale of any works. The downstairs space would do it’s best to become a center for the local design world. Imagine going on vacation and being able to attend a figure drawing class in the lobby of the hotel, or to spin some pottery and pick it up glazed, fired and packed before you leave at check out. With a great design, the possibilities are endless for something like this.

Contact Info:

Image Credits

Images were created by me. I can make more.

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