About

Nina Ćeklić is a Bosnian-Canadian artist and designer.

No matter the project—animation, games, film, VR, or visual arts—three fundamental questions drive her creative practice:

1. 1Who is this for?
2. 2Why are we making it?
3. 3What meaning are we conveying?

With the core goals as the North Star, she builds stories, worlds, and technical strategies which transform ideas into cohesive and authentic audience experiences. No matter the scale of task, from a single sketch to an entire film, her passion for meaningful creative communication is infused in the work.

Nina is especially drawn to emotional stories that explore the human experience through surreal or fantastical worlds.

She was born and raised in Calgary, Alberta with her two older brothers, a tight trio of hybrid nerdy-gamers and elite-level athletes. She grew up painting, animating, and competing internationally for Canada in water polo, and came to Los Angeles in 2017 on an athletic scholarship to the University of Southern California where she specialized in painting, drawing, and design at the USC Roski School of Art & Design. Following that, she earned an MFA in Animation & Digital Arts at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, where she specialized in computer graphics, immersive media, and real-time technology, training under Hollywood veterans from Disney and DreamWorks and award-winning independent artists alike. She continues to live and work in Los Angeles.

As the daughter of refugees, Nina developed a fascination with the diverse ways in which people perceive and experience the world, as well as the humanity which unites us. Much of her personal and professional work deals with underrepresented shared experiences. She was the Art Director and Production Manager on In the Current of Being, a haptic VR film that won the Agog Immersive Impact Award at SXSW 2025 and was an Official Selection at Cannes, Tribeca, and Kaohsiung, and Head of Creative Production on Love Bird, an AI-driven PC game selected for SXSW 2026. She has also taught art and animation as a teaching assistant at USC and part of an elementary school initiative, as well as collaborating on science education and visualization projects with USC researchers.

Spending years in team sports as both a younger teammate “playing up” and a team captain, in positions described as “utility” and “work horse of the team”, she applies the same team-player mentality to professional work: adapting easily between hands-on contribution and leadership. Leveraging her aptitudes in science and math, she has been known to rapidly develop per-project literacy in relevant software and disciplines such as node-based coding and technical design, often functioning as a key contributor and connective link between narrative, art, and engineering. She is a strong believer that a team which enjoys working together toward a shared goal does its best work, and cares deeply about the wellbeing of her colleagues and maintaining the whimsical moments of everyday life.