Motion, Marked by Hand: Step Inside Natz Blank’s Living Frames
Meet the Hamburg-based artist shaping animation through material, process and the visible trace of making.
In a moment where speed and reversibility define most creative tools, artist Natz Blank resists both.
Based in Hamburg, Germany, Natz works across graphic and motion design, moving between analog and digital with a clear pull toward the physical.
Her practice is shaped by that tension—where digital tools offer precision and flexibility, and physical materials introduce resistance, texture and unpredictability. It’s within that space that her work takes form, holding onto both control and disruption at once.
Each frame is drawn, cut, painted and assembled, with materials behaving on their own terms: a marker may run dry, the ink may pool unevenly or the paper absorbs more than expected. The outcome isn’t fully controllable, and that lack of control becomes the point.
What remains visible in the final piece is not just the image, but the negotiation it took to get there.
Her work pulls from what’s available, including fabric, foil, tree bark and found objects gathered from the street or sourced at flea markets, treating limitation as a creative condition.
Each piece carries the imprint of decisions that couldn’t be easily revised, giving the work a raw, real presence that feels increasingly rare in today’s high-definition, ultra-digital landscape.
In this conversation, Natz reflects on the relationship between material and meaning, the tension between control and discovery, and what it means to keep making work that stays open, curious and unmistakably human.
Hyvemind: Hi Natz! Welcome! Tell us a bit about yourself.
Natz Blank: I‘m a graphic and motion designer exploring the intersection of analog and digital media. I love to experiment with materials and techniques and focus on the process of making things.
HM: How do you describe your work to people who have never seen it before?
NB: I would say that, most importantly, it looks imperfect and lively. Drawing, cutting and painting on every frame by hand automatically makes things kind of wobbly and gives it a very haptic feeling.
But that's exactly what I love about it – there is something very human about it.
Also, I like to get into detail with every design. From textured surfaces to the finest lines everything is carefully composited.
Almost Tom – Gamma Waves | Music & Video by Thomas Biechele | Motion Design by Natz Blank
HM: What drew you to the mediums you work with?
NB: So far I have worked with fabric, tin foil, oil pastells, acrylic paint, ink, plastic, tree bark, etc.
I am not nearly done experimenting here. I think it's important to stay curious without having a certain result in mind.
A lot of the inspiration comes from things I find on the street or at flea markets.
I think sometimes you're more creative when you limit your options, and have to work with what you already have and what surrounds you.
Artist Note
On confidence, softness and what strength is allowed to look like
I made this animation about something that has been inspiring me lately: a fierce, confident woman in a space that has long been treated as male-dominated.
The piece brings together collage and mixed-media techniques using materials I found in the street and at home. If you have questions about the editing process, I’d love to hear them.
I kept thinking about Eileen Gu’s interview at the Olympics, when a reporter asked whether she saw her two silver medals as a win or as the loss of two golds. Her response stayed with me.
At the same time, I wanted to offer another perspective. You can be shy, quiet and soft. You can feel unsure, insecure or vulnerable. There is no need to mold yourself around someone else’s standard of dominance in order to be whole.
When we celebrate women who are loud and tough, we also need to widen our view of softness. That carries its own kind of force.
Sources
The Rise of Eileen Gu — Red Bull Snow
Freeski Big Air Gold — Beijing 2022
HM: What inspires you right now? What helps shape your style?
NB: Definitely music has always inspired me. Just like in design, artists being replaced by AI is a big topic for musicians, so I think what interests me most are people with a certain authenticity and rawness. I'd say its artists like Lady Gaga, Chappell Roan, Lola Young and Olivia Dean at the moment.
HM: Can you talk a bit about working with physical materials, when so much animation is completely digital these days?
NB: I have worked with digital animation for quite a long time. It has become the norm, because like all digital approaches it is reversible, and things can be corrected easily.
So from a perspective of productivity it makes sense.
But I also think that being able to correct everything so fast is a curse at the same time. I feel like oftentimes it leads you to judging the outcome before even trusting the process.
In handmade animation, I found a way to enjoy the process and be much more accepting of “mistakes”. Anytime a line gets smudged, the marker looks dry, or I've left a stain on the paper, I know that this is exactly what shapes the style.
I have always loved the look of handmade animation. Ironically, when I was working digital-only, I spent a lot of time recreating this look: by adding noise and texture overlays, by coding to simulate wobbly and gritty outlines and so on.
And that also led me to a point where I thought, why not do the real thing?
HM: Tell us about your process from an idea to a finished piece. Is it different each time or do you have a routine?
NB: It depends on whether I’m just experimenting by myself, to see how a new technique or material works, or if I am working with a client.
So, if I experiment for myself, I don't need a lot of planning, because this freedom I allow myself to have in creating often results in discovering new looks that I didn't know I could do before.
And this experience is of course helpful later on, when I do commissioned work.
When it's with a client I have a routine that consists of a good mix between concept and planning, but also letting myself create freely. One thing about analog animation is that it is time intensive to correct afterwards, so having good communication beforehand is crucial.
metty - Clueless | Video & Music by metty | Motion Design by Natz Blank
HM: In a climate where most of us are totally glued to tech, what does it mean to you to make something slowly and by hand at this moment?
NB: Tech makes us all very convenient, and of course I am not free of this.
But I think it feels good—and almost rebellious—to do the complete opposite of what is the technological trend. My hope is that people will nonetheless never stop appreciating human-made art.
Personally, I even believe it’s going to be more valued in the future as it will become more rare.
Native Patterns | Video by Cottonbro Studio | Motion Design by Natz Blank
HM: Let’s talk about your collaborations. What kinds of projects or people are you most interested in working with right now? What makes for a meaningful collab?
NB: I would love to do a lot of culture-related projects, as I am very interested in pop-culture and especially music. Something I always wanted to do is designing and animating intros for shows and movies.
This might sound cliché, but a meaningful collab to me is also about mutual respect.
I only seek to collaborate with people when I have the feeling that we click on a personal level, too.
HM: Looking to the future, what are you curious about or hoping to explore next in your work?
NB: I hope I never stop experimenting, but I can’t say yet what the future will bring exactly.
Since I work a lot in post-production, I want to dive more into filming on set, so I can shape the concept not only through motion design but from the storyboard, over the execution and to the animation afterwards
