Meet SP van der Merwe | MD & Animator

We had the good fortune of connecting with SP van der Merwe and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi SP, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
Me and my wife have always been artists. Pursuing a creative career in a third world country isn’t always an easy option and for a while I got stuck in engineering as that was the ‘smart’ thing to do, but I reached a point where I didn’t want to spend a moment longer in a career that wasn’t motivating or inspiring me. So I quit and started doing all things creative full-time. We created our company, Nifty Studio, and haven’t looked back since.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
We’re actual artists. Physical sketchbooks filled with scribbles. I don’t see art confined to only one thing.

We’re proud of being at a place where people are willing to give us money for our art in a country that’s predominantly full of old-school professions. Like engineering, accounting and tourism.

We were lucky in the sense that a few of our first time clients were keepers when we were starting out and since then we worked hard to give clients the best possible product that we could at that time. It wasn’t always easy as we always felt that other people were better than us, but we gave it our best and that seemed to work.

A big lesson is to not try and reinvent the wheel every day and try to always be honest and friendly with all our clients.

We are creatives that aren’t bound to one medium and we love challenging ourselves with new and multi-faceted challenges every now and then. We love to combine all our skills. In that way, we learn new things every day and keep bettering ourselves always.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Hitting all the breakfast spots our lovely town has to offer. Going on a Catamaran Tour in Walvis Bay.
Have a beer at all the local pubs.
Sunset drinks at Tiger Reef Restaurant.
Watch the sunset on one of the famous Namib Desert dunes.
Quad bike tour through the dunes.
Walk through the beautiful town of Swakopmund.
Swimming and SUPing in the Mole, our own personal bay.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Tim Ferris, Noah Bradley Jacques Crawford and Christine Meintjes are all a big motivation for us.

Website: https://nifty-studio.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nifty_studio/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/niftystudioNAM

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/niftydesignstudio

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5aRG3y9iI86LCHOqhQAG-g

Other: Tumblr – https://druidaecomic.tumblr.com/ TikTok – https://www.tiktok.com/@snorpixel ArtStation – https://www.artstation.com/snorpixel Skillshare – https://www.skillshare.com/user/spvandermerwe DeviantArt – https://www.deviantart.com/snorpixel

Image Credits
All images belong to Nifty Studio.