New Talent Profile – Debs Norton
Debs Norton and Gaylie Runciman are the founders of rm*, a Glasgow based digital media and animation company, that was set up in 2005. Winners of ‘Tastemaker of the Year’ at the 2007 Scottish Style Awards, they have gone from strength to strength, designing work for live events, advertising, and music videos. They have recently completed projects for the BBC and the First Step Awards. To contact them email mailto:hello@rm-star.comhello@rm-star.com
How did you go about setting up the company?
We both graduated in 2001 and went off and did our own thing. A few years later we came back together for a small collaboration with another artist called Deirdre Nelson where we did some graphics for her and, on the back of that, we thought the process was quite successful so we applied for a Nesta fund. A Nesta fund is designed for creative people and lasts for about three months, offering them support with business start-ups, business plans and marketing. At the end of that process you get to pitch for some money and we won £4000 pounds, which became our start-up cost.
You received Tastemaker of the Year in 2006, just a year after you set up. Did you receive a lot of promotion on the back of that?
Yeah, I suppose we did. We’ve always been kind of an odd entity because we’re artists who have set up a company, and we’ve set up a very creative company, so the art world fans found us perplexing and the commercial world found us perplexing. Initially, it was quite tricky to navigate through those two worlds. Winning something like Tastemaker of the Year was a great thing for us to boost our profile, but also our confidence, to know that we were going down the right path and that there is something worthy in what we are doing.
Where do you draw inspiration from?
Obviously the art world is a great inspiration to us, but also the fashion world, all of the different worlds where people are pushing things and looking at using animation or graphics in a different way. Film, everything, we’re constantly out there having a look at what’s going on, thinking about that and interpreting what we see.
You studied Fine Art. What prompted the move into the digital realm?
I was an installation artist, and still am. I liked the idea of building a virtual world through animation software and I was quite interested in architectural theory as well at the time, so it was a way to start playing with those ideas. Gaylie was originally a sculptor so she has a very 3D way of looking at the world. We are very different people, which is one of our strengths I think; the work created at rm* is very much a collaboration of our ideas and creative minds.
Do you think there’s a community atmosphere amongst digital artists in Glasgow, which you’re able to tap into?
Definitely, and I don’t think it’s just digital artists. My network is very much made up of companies our size, doing very different things, from audio based work to editing, design, illustration, fashion, fine art, anything. I started off working on my own at my bedroom desk but I wouldn’t want to be isolated again, I mean, you have to start somewhere and it worked then, but collaboration is definitely something I enjoy and seek out. In Glasgow, there’s a melting pot of people that we see regularly out and about, or that we seek out. It’s so vibrant and healthy.
What are the biggest challenges that you’ve faced?
Trying to get your profile up and out there and getting people to see and to understand what you’re doing is a constant battle, and I don’t think we’ve got it right yet. It’s constantly revising and changing. The way we market and get ourselves known is so different – the internet, social media, the resources and tools we use now – when we set up these weren’t things you used. It was much more old-fashioned getting out there and networking, where as now there’s a whole virtual land you can plug into as well.
What are some of your favourite projects you have worked on?
Ooh… I mean, they vary. They’re all very different. For example, this year we did something for the BBC, it was the first time we had done something for the BBC and it was great for us and great for our profile. That was a very driven, narrative-based project. So from day one we knew we had to deliver A B C and D and work through a series of circumstances to get the audience to see something. But at the same time as that we did a very small collaboration with an artist called Jim Colquhoun in the project room here. Both of these were fantastic projects, but very different, so I wouldn’t want to say that either was better. I think what’s best about the opportunities we have is that they’re very different, and it means we get creatively challenged. Every project offers a different, unusual situation.
What are you working on at the moment?
We’re just starting to talk about another project with the BBC; the same director who we built a good relationship with on the first project, so we’re really pleased with that. We’re doing a whole new kind of promotion right now, with some architectural companies, because we’re looking at what we can do with 3D. There’s also some much more traditional animation for some web companies, so it’s quite different stuff.
Where can readers find your work?
Well, there’s the website rm-star.com, at our source. Anything that we do, if there are any public projects coming up, we’ll put them on the site. There’s a blog on there as well that you can link to. We’re doing some stuff with Glasgow University at the minute, working with Nick Fells, who works with 3D sound. That project’s happening in June and on the back of that we’re hoping to do a couple of performances, so the blog should talk a little bit more about that when it happens.
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