WeAnimate 2025-10-06 | wam#0066

Creative Director Jesper Andersen has been at MOOD Visuals for over a decade, working his way up, from one of the first concept artists at the company, to a leadership role as creative director. His current role challenges him as a leader and strategist as well as as an artist and designer. We discussed his history and creative inspiration, as well as the evolution of MOOD over time.

Jesper: I had always liked art, but I had pursued other things, and was working as an IT consultant. In my free time, I was drawing and looking for a community where people were drawing together. It was the early days of online art forums, and I found a group who were basically doing game mods. I joined this group and got along so well with these guys from all over the world, and one guy in particular, Hanno Hagedorn, was also working in the industry, developing games at Crytek. One day we were chatting online and he mentioned that he had gotten a job as a concept artist. I had been doing that type of illustration, so I knew what it was, but I wasn’t very familiar with the company; Far Cry had just come out at the time. He suggested that I contact them, so I sent in an application, and they asked me to do an art test. I did the art test and I was hired over the phone. That was unheard of back in the day: people almost always required an onsite interview. I think they may have been a bit desperate. Not to talk myself down or anything, but it was a lucky break for me. So that was my first actual industry job, back in January 2005.

While I was at Crytek, I was still trying to figure out where I was going. I had a job offer from Guerilla, in the Netherlands, which was interesting, but not exactly what I was looking for. I really wanted to get back to Denmark after living in Germany for almost 5 years. I felt like I had skills, but I felt like I needed to back up my skills with paper, because that’s how it works in Denmark. You have the education, you have the paper, and so you can prove that you have the skills. I also really wanted to get some theory attached to my gut feelings. I felt like certain things were right when I did them, but I wanted to be able to back that up with an education.

So I went to university and studied design and finished as a bachelor, and then took a specialized game development program. While I was doing that I was working in my free time for another game company. I had worked for them on a Warhammer game, but it was just a part-time job. The game they released didn’t do very well, and the place was kind of closing down, so I knew that I was going to be leaving that job soon anyway.

Just at that time I got an email from a guy called Jan Ditlev. We had just connected on LinkedIn, and we kind of knew each other from online forums and things, and he was one of the co-owners of MOOD. He sent me an email out of the blue and invited me to MOOD’s moving-in party. I knew nothing about MOOD. I didn’t even look up their website or anything. It’s a very small world, and another friend of mine was invited to the party as well, and it was like 2 minutes away, so I decided to go. I got to meet the owners and we were all talking, and it was basically like an impromptu job interview at the party. Then they called me and said how much they liked talking, and suggested that I come by to continue the conversation. So the party was on a Friday, and I stopped by on the Monday, and I had a job by that Tuesday afternoon.

I can look back at my career and say that yes, of course, the choices I have made have had an influence on where I am today. But I can also honestly see the role of chance; these freak coincidences that just happened and it’s kind of remarkable, really.

 

– Jesper Andersen

One of the things that hooked me on MOOD in the beginning was that we were doing movie work, we were doing game work, we worked on toys, consumer products… I came from game development, where you stay on the same project for X amount of years, and you’re on it so long that you get tired of it. You see other people hyped about it, but you can’t feel that way any more. MOOD actually gave me a job where one week I was on Hitman, and the next month it was God of War, and the next month I was doing LEGO posters. I can’t say that it played into my ego, but it was great to see these day-to-day changes, and be involved in such a variety of work. It hooked me.

Over the years, MOOD has changed tremendously, but also not that much. We are lucky that most of the original team is still around. Most of the big things: the way we work with clients, the way that we project what we’re going to work on, all that is pretty much the same. But the communication in the house has changed a lot. Now we need to include everyone in much larger communication channels. It’s so important to give everyone a voice. You can’t just sit and say “well, I’m the senior, so what I say is law.” Of course not – you need to open up the conversation. We’ve always had the belief that no matter where you are coming from, even if you are starting as a junior, you always have a say in things. We’re nothing without the artists, so of course it’s the artists that drive a lot of decisions. If you have feedback, we want to hear it. One of the best examples is that we had a project where we were just about to deliver, and a junior artist came up to me and asked if we could make a couple changes before we delivered. And it was actually a really good idea, so we stopped the whole delivery until we made the change he suggested, because it was such a good idea.

Other companies have just a core team of art directors working with freelancers, and that’s fine, but that’s not how we want to run things. We want to have people together, we want people coming up with ideas together, because that’s the most important thing.

We earn our value on our ideas. Anybody can create an incredible image, but if it isn’t a good idea, it’s not going to work.

 

– Jesper Andersen

We believe that when we say to an artist “you’re now actually responsible for this client. You’re responsible for doing the work and promoting the company,” it creates a sense of shared responsibility, that we’re all in it together, and a sense of belonging. That responsibility and being part of something is what makes us different.

We have clients that keep coming back, and most of them are from the US, and one of the reasons they say they like working with us is that we don’t waste time. Our mentality of always pushing means that if we have extra time in the schedule, we don’t just sit on our hands: we do more. Like other companies in the Nordics, we really feel the need to use time to the best of our ability.

We don’t want to just sit and wait for things to happen. We want to MAKE things happen.

 

– Jesper Andersen

But it’s also one of the things that artists learn in the company: we don’t want to just tackle the work. We want to be attentive that there’s a real person on the client side, and make sure that they are also having a great experience. So there’s a lot of different hands on client communication, and we try to help new freelancers who are just out of school to adjust their expectations and learn how to communicate effectively, not just to make art.

Personally, transitioning from being an artist to being a creative leader means that I came with one set of skills, but now I have to develop a whole new set of skills. Being an artist is more about working with the task that I’m given, and taking that responsibility, but as creative director I’m looking at the bigger picture of things, trying to influence where we go as a company, while taking care of the creatives. What has changed most for me is the aspect of mentoring. Now I’m mentoring the art directors more than I mentor the artists, but I’m trying to help make sure people don’t make the same mistakes I’ve made.

One of the things I promised myself when I transitioned into this role was to be in a position to help people. That’s the most important thing to me. If an artist  starts at MOOD, and learns so much that they go on to an even bigger place and have an even bigger career trajectory, and we were, or maybe I was, instrumental in helping them on that path, it gives me the kind of satisfaction that I may have gotten in the past from finishing artwork and having a happy client.

I see my role as making MOOD a great place for artists, but also pushing them, because I know that people can always be better. Of course, you can’t push people all the time, but it’s important that we don’t plateau, and we don’t want artists to feel that they have plateaued. If I can help change someone’s trajectory, or at least give them some food for thought about how they are continuing with skill-building or with their career, then hopefully I’ve done my job well.

Every year since I started, way back in 2014,  has been different. You could almost put a theme on every year. What keeps me excited is that I feel like we haven’t peaked as a company. I want to see how much I can contribute to push the company in directions where we didn’t even imagine ourselves.

I want to know what’s over the next horizon, what new areas can we delve into, what we can try that’s exciting and different. Operating a successful concept art studio is a huge achievement in itself, and we’re proud of it. But I’m excited to see how we continue to move forward and do more art – like 3D, cinematics, and even co-development. I see a studio that wants to keep evolving, wants to keep doing new things, and is hungry for more

 

– Jesper Andersen

Whether you are a person or a company or whatever, being hungry for more, being ballsy enough to seek more, is super important. I mean, you could perceive that in a negative way, thinking that we’re never satisfied. But I would rather turn it around and say that we have the opportunity to become so much more, and that’s not egotistical. It’s just a desire to see how far we can take the ship called MOOD.

More of Jesper’s work can be seen here: https://www.artstation.com/scribblehead/profile

By matching ambition and exploration along with a great culture and support for their artists, MOOD Visuals continues to achieve both creative and business success. While the company grows, evolves, and undertakes new challenges, their creative staff embraces these new opportunities and grows right along with them. We wish the company continued success, and celebrate their approach to teamwork.

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