◆ STRANGE NICHES ·
LiDAR Scanning Fast Food Restaurants: My Strangest Freelance Niche
Of all the lines on my resume, this is the one that gets the most raised eyebrows: I do LiDAR spatial scanning for fast food restaurants. Tim Hortons. Burger King. Popeyes. Taco Bell. Peet's Coffee. If you've eaten a breakfast sandwich in a recently renovated location, there's a nonzero chance I stood in that dining room at odd hours, sweeping a scanner through space, capturing millions of measurement points.
What LiDAR scanning actually is
LiDAR measures distance with light — the scanner fires laser pulses and times their return, building a "point cloud": a precise 3D map of a physical space, accurate down to fractions of an inch. Where an architect's original drawings describe the building as it was supposed to be built, a scan captures the building as it actually exists — every out-of-square wall, dropped ceiling, relocated counter, and mystery bulkhead added in a renovation nobody documented.
For restaurant chains, that difference is money. These brands renovate constantly — new menu boards, new kitchen equipment, new layouts to serve the drive-through-and-delivery era. Designing those renovations from inaccurate drawings means costly surprises on install day. Designing them from a point cloud means the millwork fits the first time.
How a motion designer ends up here
It's less random than it sounds. My whole career — animation for major brands, then building a physical product company — has lived at the intersection of 3D space, precision, and visual communication. A point cloud is just another 3D scene, and turning raw spatial data into something a design team can actually use is a communication problem as much as a technical one. The tools were already in my hands; the application was new.
It also fits how I like to work now: focused engagements, tangible output, a clear definition of done. You scan the space, you process the data, you deliver the model, and somewhere down the line a renovation goes smoothly because of it.
The case for a strange niche
Here's my actual advice, for any creative or technical freelancer: cultivate one weird specialty. Something narrow enough that when the need arises, there is no obvious competition — there's just you, the person who does that thing. My strange niche found me through my network precisely because the skill combination (3D fluency plus reliability plus comfort working around operating businesses) is rare.
Broad skills get you considered. Strange niches get you called.
The rest of my current work — motion design, brand systems, explainer and investor video — lives at davidzak.com. But if you happen to need a fast food restaurant scanned, well. You know who to call.
David Zak takes on a limited number of motion design and creative direction projects per quarter. See services, selected clients and availability at davidzak.com.