Photo by Andrea Wenglowskyj
My name is Lori Schkufza. The name is from the former Yugoslavia and has a lot of seemingly unnecessary consonants. A good way to pronounce it is to ignore the c and the h, so it would be more like Skufza. I was born and raised in New York City, went to California for college, moved around a bit, and ultimately ended up in Western New York where I live with my partner and our Boston Terrier in an old house with a vegetable garden and floors that have settled.
I’m a 2D animator and have had my hand in a number of different areas before settling into my niche of education based animation. I started out in games for Facebook (before Facebook became enemy #1 of democracy) and have worked on mobile applications doing both character based and more abstract graphic animation. I’ve worked with ad agencies on explainer videos, videos for internal use at companies, and advertising campaigns. There have been non profits, research labs and advocacy organizations where I’ve created videos on subjects ranging from breast health to the intricacies of battery recycling, forced arbitration and solar electrification. But primarily I work with education based video content. From middle school students to university level; calculus to epidemiology and public health, to globalization and the importance of healthy waterways. I love the problem solving nature of it: of taking complicated subjects that can often be abstract and making them digestible to a wider audience through visualization and movement. My work is quirky, bright and a little offbeat.
For a handful of years now I’ve been a volunteer with Creative Mornings/Buffalo where I create animated content. There’s been a range of projects from a year long series highlighting and giving a spotlight to local people doing awesome work locally in Buffalo to a series of animated engaged in non-donut activities. In 2019 I was a speaker at Creative Mornings/Buffalo on the theme of Silence where I discussed the importance of finding white space through long distance hiking in order to maintain creativity and prevent burnout.
Hiking and backpacking is very important to me and equal to my identity as being an animator. I got bit by that hiking bug when I spent three weeks on the John Muir Trail through the Sierras with my brother and two friends. Since then I’ve knocked a number of states off of the Appalachian Trail as a solo hiker (My trail name is Snufkin and I often leave haikus in shelter logs.) when I can make the time and forever have a list of trails to hit and National Parks to visit. My two favorite parks are Isle Royale in Lake Superior and Kings Canyon in California. It’s no surprise then that a major love of mine and influence on me is nature. When I’m not animating, I do illustration work with a focus on nature. I love a series, whether state flowers, species of whales or minerals. There’s something extremely satisfying in a full set. Had I not gone into animation, and had I been a better science student I probably would have been a marine biologist.
My favorite book is Moby Dick. I’ve probably read it at least a dozen times.
You can find me on the internet doing various things at various places:
Prints at INPRNT and Society6
T-Shirts at Cotton Bureau
Changemaker | #buffaloiscreative Video Series on YouTube
Donut GIFs for Buffalo is Creative at GIPHY
Panimation.tv | Lori Schkufza
I’m a 2D animator and have had my hand in a number of different areas before settling into my niche of education based animation. I started out in games for Facebook (before Facebook became enemy #1 of democracy) and have worked on mobile applications doing both character based and more abstract graphic animation. I’ve worked with ad agencies on explainer videos, videos for internal use at companies, and advertising campaigns. There have been non profits, research labs and advocacy organizations where I’ve created videos on subjects ranging from breast health to the intricacies of battery recycling, forced arbitration and solar electrification. But primarily I work with education based video content. From middle school students to university level; calculus to epidemiology and public health, to globalization and the importance of healthy waterways. I love the problem solving nature of it: of taking complicated subjects that can often be abstract and making them digestible to a wider audience through visualization and movement. My work is quirky, bright and a little offbeat.
For a handful of years now I’ve been a volunteer with Creative Mornings/Buffalo where I create animated content. There’s been a range of projects from a year long series highlighting and giving a spotlight to local people doing awesome work locally in Buffalo to a series of animated engaged in non-donut activities. In 2019 I was a speaker at Creative Mornings/Buffalo on the theme of Silence where I discussed the importance of finding white space through long distance hiking in order to maintain creativity and prevent burnout.
Hiking and backpacking is very important to me and equal to my identity as being an animator. I got bit by that hiking bug when I spent three weeks on the John Muir Trail through the Sierras with my brother and two friends. Since then I’ve knocked a number of states off of the Appalachian Trail as a solo hiker (My trail name is Snufkin and I often leave haikus in shelter logs.) when I can make the time and forever have a list of trails to hit and National Parks to visit. My two favorite parks are Isle Royale in Lake Superior and Kings Canyon in California. It’s no surprise then that a major love of mine and influence on me is nature. When I’m not animating, I do illustration work with a focus on nature. I love a series, whether state flowers, species of whales or minerals. There’s something extremely satisfying in a full set. Had I not gone into animation, and had I been a better science student I probably would have been a marine biologist.
My favorite book is Moby Dick. I’ve probably read it at least a dozen times.
You can find me on the internet doing various things at various places:
Prints at INPRNT and Society6
T-Shirts at Cotton Bureau
Changemaker | #buffaloiscreative Video Series on YouTube
Donut GIFs for Buffalo is Creative at GIPHY
Panimation.tv | Lori Schkufza
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