Author: Reginald Chan

Since time immemorial, people used to design various images on paper to convey different messages. The desire to give the still images some life led to the development of animation that was later incorporated into the structures. If you are a storyteller, animation can be a good place to showcase your talent. Read on to learn important things that you need to understand about animation. 

What is Animation?

You have probably heard about animation, but you may not know what it is. Animation is all about creating an illusion of objects moving in pictures. The animators use multiple images that appear to move in a fast sequence. Animation is created by setting different frames of pictures to present some form of movement of the images to the viewers. The animation was mainly used in the cartoon industry, and it is now used in different sectors to portray several messages through moving images to the viewers. New technology is taking animation to greater heights, and it has since become a lucrative industry.    

Significance of Animation

Animation is vital since it allows us to tell stories and communicate our emotions to children and adults. With animation, people in different parts of the globe can share ideas easily to create meaning from various things that cannot be possible with live-action films. In this digital era, anyone can use different forms of technology, like tablets and computers to draw and show their ideas in a fun way. With an Animation Budget Template, you can playfully communicate something serious. Drawing figures can be fun, and the outcome is less intimidating to the viewers, and they can easily share your insights in a heartwarming way. 

Types of Animation

There are different types of animation that are designed to suit various purposes. The following are the popular types of animation that you can consider if you want to communicate various ideas using motion images.  

1. Traditional Animation

As the name suggests, this is the oldest form of animation where people used to draw images on paper using pencil and other colored markers. The pictures are drawn in a series that depicts motion in the images. However, this method was time-consuming, and it was also costly. 

2. 2 D Animation

New technology in the form of 2D animation changed the animation sector since you can do it on a computer or other related technological devices like tablets. The technique of animation remains the same as the traditional method where each frame is given movement through the design of multiple images. The only difference is that computer technology is fast and effective, and it has significantly reduced the cost involved in animation production. 

3. 3D Animation

3D animation involves three-dimensional computer-generated images. The images are created in the same frame, but they are now more controllable and manageable due to digital technology that is fast and accurate. This type of animation is commonly used during the current period. 

4. Motion Graphics

This is different from other forms of animation, and it does not depend on character or the depiction of a story. Instead, it makes texts, elements, icons, or full images to become moveable. This type of animation is mainly used for business and promotional purposes.  

Skills Required to be an Animator

There are different skills that you require to become a professional animator. If you are in the field of animation and designing, you should possess creative thinking skills to avoid making your work look outdated and monotonous. You should think creatively and have the best skills that help you innovate to make things different from the mainstream animations. You also need to pay attention to detail and make your animation in-depth. 

It is essential to know how to use different software and tools to become a professional animator. Traditional animation has since been overtaken by new technology, so you must know the software and other tools that are used during the current digital era. More importantly, you must have good communication skills to get all the requirements and needs of the clients. 

Animation involves the use of multiple images that appear to be moving in a sequence, and these are used to portray different messages and perceptions to the viewers. Animation is commonly used in the creation of television cartoon shows, but it has since spread to other sectors. In other words, the animation is a simple and fun way of communicating different messages to the target viewers. There are many things that you should know about motion graphics to create meaningful productions for the benefit of your audience.  

Doing business in any country is not an easy thing. You will face many challenges, which will require you to work harder to achieve the business goals. When starting a business, you will want it easy to operate, easy to manage, profitable, and without much friction. With harsh economic times globally, most entrepreneurs are looking for suitable places to start businesses. One of the cool places to start a venture is in the United States. Can a foreigner start a business in the US? This article will highlight everything you should know concerning starting a business in the US. Let’s dive straight in.

Can a foreign citizen establish a business in the US?

A foreigner can start a venture in the United States of America. There are many small businesses and multinationals in the US belonging to foreign citizens. However, the process is not that straightforward. You only need to follow a proper procedure and have your business running. As stated at Foreign USA, you have to get actionable advice to register and carry on your startup in this developing country. You have to know about the application cost, the minimum wage to your employers, registration process, among other details. One exception you need to understand is that you cannot form entities such as S-Corp without having a US resident shareholder. 

Why do foreigners need to start a business in the US?

You might be wondering what will make a foreigner think of starting a business in the US and not their native country. There are many reasons, some related to cost, making individuals want to run their businesses in the US. Some of these reasons include.

• Fees

If you live in places that charge fewer fees to run a business, this might not be your reason. However, many countries charge high fees to run a business, making the whole process expensive. You have to pay government fees, notary fees, legal fees, annual renewal fees, and other costs, making you earn less or zero profits from your business. The US has affordable rates when it comes to the registration and running of a company.

• Banking

While the US is not that perfect, more banks offer friendly services to business people. They have low-cost accounts backed by a stable currency. Also, there are more digital banking products, which will enable your business to run smoothly and efficiently. 

• Taxes

Taxes are the cause of headaches for many individuals who want to run a business. Many developing countries charge exorbitant taxes to business people, making their businesses not realize profits. Even though the US has taxes, it offers deductions and other tax benefits, making it easy for a business to thrive. However, before starting a business, it is essential to go through the tax guide to understand what you are signing for. 

• Ease of operating

In some countries, starting a business will take a lot of time, cost, and paperwork. Also, most paperwork might be in a foreign language, which might not be easy to interpret. In the US, the whole application is straightforward and fast. You will take less time registering your business. 

• Payment Processing

The US is a developed country. Building a product and developing it is not that complicated. Here, you will find cheaper and efficient payment processing methods which will make your business run efficiently. 

• Reputation

Your business will be reputable if it operates from the United States than any other country. You will enjoy more services and more accreditation, which will make your business easily known worldwide. 

LLC Vs. Corporation: Which business is best for a foreigner? 

There are different ways you can register your business in the US. Some of these ways include the C-Corp, S-Corp, Limited Liability Companies, Partnerships, and Sole Proprietorship. Most businesses run by foreigners are the LLC and the C-Corp. Why these businesses? It’s because they have fewer restrictions on the number of foreigners to run the business. Sole proprietorships and partnerships aren’t that common because they have some restrictions on foreigners. 

If you are a small business person, you can pick the LLC. It is the perfect choice for any entrepreneur who wants to establish their business in the United States. However, you can choose other options depending on the business you want to run.

Which state is the best to register an online business?

While you can run your online business from any state in the US, there are those states which offer more benefits to online businesses. Some of these states include Wyoming and Delaware states. Why these states? It’s because they are cheap to operate a business, and they have no income or sales tax to online businesses. A state like Wyoming offers less paperwork with greater privacy. 

Process of starting a business in the US as a foreigner

The whole process of starting a business in the United States can seem overwhelming, but it isn’t. The entire process can take approximately a month. You only need to follow the right processes, and you will have your business running. Which are these processes? Check on the steps below.

• Step 1: Register your LLC. You need to work with a registered agent to complete the process fast.
• Step 2: Get a physical Business Address for your business
• Step 3: Apply for an EIN (Employer Identification Number). You need to do this at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and help you file the Social Security or tax file number for your business.  
• Step 4: Get a Bank account for your business. 
• Step 5: Get a payment processor.
• Step 6: Have a bookkeeping system.
• Step 7: Run your business.

When you follow the above advice and steps promptly, you will start and run your business efficiently in the US. You only need to study the rules and get advice on running your business as a foreigner. It will be best to contact experts or individuals who already have established businesses for more information. Also, you have to consider getting the right products to earn you considerable profits.

Everyone starts their journey as a new employee at some point in time. It’s a time full of anxiety and uncertainty for the new recruit since they’re walking into an unknown environment. If you can help reduce their stress then the employee will adapt quickly to the new environment which will help them become a productive member of the company much faster. The quicker you can make an employee used to the work environment and culture of the company, the better.

Below are some of the key points you should keep in mind when onboarding a new employee to help them become a part of the company faster and will ultimately retain them by creating a positive first impression.

1. Make them feel at Home

Whether it’s an offline onboarding in your office or an online onboarding process, you must ensure that the employee feels comfortable around their peers. This will help them establish their network inside the office and form professional relationships faster. Many companies provide a welcome gift, a set of instructions, and a welcome buddy to expedite this process.

Making the new recruits comfortable will also make sure that they ask work related questions. Asking questions is extremely important since it will clear up their doubts regarding their work. The number one problem employers face with new employees is retention, if you follow these steps then it shouldn’t be a problem.

2. Get the Paperwork Sorted

Before you can start assigning your new employee their tasks, you should make sure that their documents are in order. This is beneficial for both your company and your employee. Your company will benefit greatly since managing paperwork is usually a cumbersome task for HR. You can always take the help of an easy employee onboarding software solution to make things easier and more convenient. If you complete the formalities in the beginning, you will not be facing any issues with incomplete paperwork in the future.

This is also greatly beneficial for your employee since it will give them a sense of being officially inducted into your organization. The employee will be more productive after they consider themselves to be formally inducted.

3. Assign a Mentor

Oftentimes, the induction and the training provided to a new employee isn’t enough to make them ready for a real-life scenario. The problem with theoretical training is that it provides 0 practical experience in how to deal with problems that are bound to emerge during one’s work. The only way to teach your employee how to deal with these daily hiccups is by pairing them with someone who has experience in the organization.

Only a person who has personally faced the problems can guide someone the right way. A mentor helps the new employee understand how the company works and what are the workarounds to the problems faced while completing their work. A new employee will get comfortable with their mentor very fast and this will help them develop their first bond with another employee in the company.

4. Establish a Roadmap

A roadmap that spans several weeks or even months will help your employee understand how their responsibilities and work are going to evolve over a period of time. You will also be able to hand over the critical functions one by one after your employees have proved that they are up to the mark.

Initially, you would like to start slow and allow more room for the learning process and growth of your new employee. Once they are firmly established, you will be able to integrate them better into your organization by assigning more complex tasks. The roadmap will keep your employee’s morale high since they’ll know what to do in order to reach the next step on the growth ladder.

5. Get the Managers Involved too

The new recruit will be forming the backbone of your company and in order to establish a level of trust, you need to rope in the senior managers to interact with them. This will ensure that your new employees don’t feel left out and they might even get inspired by the top-level leadership. The involvement of managers will also show that your company cares about its employees and it will help inculcate a sense of belonging in the new employees.

The managers symbolize the work culture of your company and interaction with them ensures that your employees understand the ethos of your company. A manager can get involved in little ways like organizing an interactive session to take feedback and address any issues. The communication line that develops during these interactions will go a long way in ensuring employee satisfaction which is important to retain your new recruits.

6. Create a Fun and Positive Environment

You don’t have to keep poking your new employees to do more work and achieve more targets right off the bat. If you create pressure from day one then it’s highly unlikely that the employee will associate their office with a place where they want to be. If you create a negative and tense atmosphere it will be just like hitting yourself with an ax.

You want to ensure that the employee has a good time when they’re at the office. This will ensure that their productivity is high throughout the day and even during the rough patches which are inevitable. A positive environment is not only beneficial for new employees but for the veterans of your company as well. This is mainly because everyone wants to give their best at work and it’ll only be possible if you provide the right environment to do so.

These are a few tips that will help your new recruits adapt better to the new environment they are in. You were also once a newbie at some point in time and empathizing with their situation is the best way forward. If you ensure that your employees get comfortable soon, then you’ll be rewarded with high retention rates and more productivity in the end. So focus on the adjusting phase and the results will automatically follow soon after.

There are as many career paths as there are people in the world. Long gone are the days when your options were: men do what your father did for the rest of your life, and women take care of a home and children. Today, people are having more complex and evolving careers than ever before. Most of us will have far more than one job our entire working life, and this wide variety of jobs is more likely to reach out across a few industries. Moreover, because the digital and technical world is developing at such a rapid pace, we need to be making career choices with the idea of pivoting in the back of our minds. 

The jobs that exist today might not exist tomorrow (if 2020 has taught us nothing else, it’s that sudden change is a part of the human experience). We need to be ready to flow with the future instead of trying to stubbornly hold onto the ideas we had about work as children (or the ideas about work that were forced upon us from parents, grandparents, and outdated schooling systems).

The following will explore some different career path ideas to help you get the creative juices flowing. When thinking about making choices for your working future, it’s always a good idea to keep yourself aware of the fact that it isn’t going to be a one-stop solution. 

Even if you manage to get a job and hold onto it for the next forty years, you’re still going to have to be ready to adapt to the way technology will influence that job. It’s likely that what the day-to-day routine of someone with that position is today will change drastically within the next five to ten years.

Solar and Wind Energy Technicians

Both of these fields are booming right now as more people (and governments with big budgets to spend) turn to greener energy solutions. These industries are expected to grow somewhere between 50 and 70%, meaning there’s going to be a massive influx of money and need and few people who can serve that need. There’s space to create businesses here if that’s your vibe, but also open positions in every stage of the process from design to installation. 

These jobs are also an excellent choice for those among us who don’t want to be doing only office work; many positions in this field contain at least some outdoor working time which many of the current booming industries don’t. As a bonus, this job is helping the world get access to clean, affordable energy, so it’s something you can feel good about doing even on those stressful days where everything that could go wrong has gone wrong.

Content Creators

No, it’s not just buzz. Everyone needs content today, and most people running a full-time business don’t have the extra time or skills to devote to video production, article writing, blogging, Instagramming, hashtagging, and search engine optimization. This is one of those career paths that has lots of room for pivoting, but it also takes a fair bit of time to build up to. Typically content creators need to produce a portfolio’s worth of work first and then start pitching clients. It’s also one of those fields where you’re going to be working on a contract basis (sometimes even as small as a single article), which means you’re also going to have to master how to keep those jobs coming in. 

This is also a job with much more sporadic time requirements. Yes, people make it look like they’re just popping online twice per day to answer comments and post, but they’re not showing you the hours of photo editing and caption crafting that went on behind the scenes. This is a great choice for people who know they’d get bored senseless doing the same thing every day.

The Clergy

Now, this might not be the right type of work for everyone, but for the devout among us, this job is just as important as it has ever been. It also turns out that this position has some of the highest job satisfaction reportings available (87% report being extremely satisfied). People whose work aligns with their faith are happier than nearly all of the rest of us. This work helps spread positivity in the world and support real people through tough times. 

What’s more, because of the advent of digital churches and ministries, tech-savvy folks are more than needed in this field. Beyond this, many congregations are seeing a rise in attendants as people turn back to their faith during the chaotic times these last two years have been.

Coaching

Given how complex modernity has become, many people are seeking guidance and support. Similar to the clergy point mentioned above, this profession can help spread positivity and support people through difficult times in their lives. Coaching has countless specializations (life coach, career coach, relationship coach, business coach… etc.), and many of these positions can be done remotely or virtually, allowing for greater freedom. If you find yourself asking: how much do life coaches make? You’ll be pleasantly surprised because coaches make a pretty penny. Similar to the content creation profession, this is one that will involve semi-regular seeking of new work. 

Some clients you might have for long periods of time, but others might be hiring you to help them deal with a temporary event like a new job or a divorce. You’ll probably always have one eye open for a new client in this trade.

Online Counseling and Therapy

Are you noticing a trend? People need help. People need support, and more often than ever before, they’re turning to the internet to find it. Given the explosion of mental health needs and struggles as humans scramble to keep up with this ever-changing world, more people are turning towards counselors and therapists. This is a profession that can help you help others (studies have shown that helping others is the fastest way to be happy with your life). There is tons of room for specialization in this field as well, so take your time to explore all the options before choosing your direction.

The above list of careers is just the tip of the iceberg. As the world changes, there will be more disruptions and more alterations. Since people expect to spend about one-third of their working life doing their jobs, the old-fashioned metrics no longer apply. Yes, we need to make ends meet, but we also need a sense of fulfillment from our work, a way to find happiness within it (especially now that we’re all living so long and therefore working for so much longer).