Category: Motion Design

GD2-AW25 – Design Principles for Motion

LT 2.1 Introduction to Illustrator and Photoshop

The task
  • Step 1 – Open up Illustrator and Photoshop.
  • Step 2 – Configure your workspace to something you’re comfortable with, and give the ‘layers’ panel extra space.
  • Step 3 – Create 10 artboards. Fill in each artboard with the numbers one to 10 in order.

LT 2.2 Design Principle part 1

The task

Here’s a fantastic piece of motion design by Elastic. They carefully consider the design principles we’ve learnt about today – but can you spot them?

  • Step 1 – Watch the video carefully and analyse each shot.
  • Step 2 – Take screenshots and write a motivation on where your spot contrast, emphasis and balance.

Contrast: In the opening sequence, bright, saturated colors pop against a dark, neutral background. The interplay of light and shadow also creates depth, highlighting specific elements. For instance, the use of glowing edges focuses the viewer’s attention effectively

Emphasis: Motion is used to direct focus. For example, A glowing circular element grows in size and moves toward the center of the frame while the surrounding elements fade out. This guides the viewer’s focus to the center and highlights the main point of the scene.

Balance: Throughout the video, balanced compositions alternate between symmetry and controlled asymmetry. This dynamic approach keeps the design engaging while maintaining harmony across the scenes.

Symmetry is achieved with a split-screen layout, where elements on either side are mirrored in shape and motion, creating visual harmony while maintaining dynamism.

A sports brand is launching three new products: ‘Noon’, ‘Kayak’ and ‘Radar’. They also happen to be three palindromes to make our design choices a bit easier.

  • Step 1 – Pick one of the words above.
  • Step 2 – Create a quick logo that has contrast, emphasis and balance.
  • Step 3 – Write down how you added the above principles.
    Ask your classmates on the student discussion Forum if they can spot these elements in your design (optional).
 

Here is the logo design for “Kayak.” It reflects the brand’s adventurous spirit with a mirrored text effect that simulates water reflection. The navy blue background, clean white typography, and light blue waves emphasize contrast, symmetry, and balance.

LT 2.3 Design Principles part 2

The task
Infographics are often created into explainer videos and are an excellent way to quickly communicate a lot of information:

Brief

Scoops Ice Cream is your client, and they want to create an infographic about all their ice cream products, flavours and stands at a music festival called Rocking the Daisies. This will eventually be turned into an explainer video that features on screens at the event to advertise their offering.

Using the principles we’ve learnt about in this lesson, create an infographic that is 1920px in width by 2160px in height. This will allow a motion designer to animate it later.

Below is an information pack from the client:
  • Step 1 – Create a Photoshop or Illustrator document that’s 1920px wide by 2160px high.
  • Step 2 – Ensure all the information provided by the client is in the infographic. You can add as much additional information to your infographic as you want.
  • Step 3 – Find some good references, colour palettes and styles to base your infographic on.
  • Step 4 – Ensure your files and layers are named correctly so that an animator can easily use your design.
  • Step 5 – Upload your finished infographic to your blog.

LT 2.4 Color Theory

The task
our colleague is struggling to colour their artwork. They’ve asked you to help and create a colour palette based on the lessons you’ve learnt. The client wants a unique colour palette that doesn’t exist on any trending colour websites, so it’s up to you to build a palette from scratch!
You can download the Illustrator vector art.
 
Upload your colour palette and your finished illustrations.

GD2-AW24 – First Step Into Motion Design

LT 1.1 The History Of Motion Design

The task

You’ve just acquired a time machine! To which era of motion history would you travel to get involved in? Write a 250-word document outlining your favourite era and include the following:

  • What year would you go back to?
  • Who would you be an understudy to?
  • Why is this part of motion history your favourite?
  • How do you think this part of history has influenced the modern day world?

Include pictures, videos and any other media to help motivate your answers.

I would go back to the 1870s and be an understudy to Eadweard Muybridge, one of the pioneers in photographic study of motion and early work in motion-picture projection.

The reason I would go back and be an understudy to Eadweard Muybridge is because of the way he combined photography and motion graphic. I love photographing, so reading and learning more about the history is really fascinating.

His most notable contribution to the world of photography came through his innovative work in capturing motion. In the 1870s, he embarked on a series of experiments commissioned by Leland Stanford, a railroad tycoon and racehorse owner, to settle a debate about whether all four hooves of a horse leave the ground simultaneously during a gallop.

He devised a groundbreaking technique using multiple cameras trigged by tripwires, capturing successive image of a horse in motion. This technique, known as “motion photography” or “chrono photography,” allowed him to freeze moments of movements, revealing details imperceptible to the human eye.

In 1878, Muybridge successfully demonstrated through his photographic sequence, “Sallie Gardner at the Gallop.” that horses do indeed lift all four hooves of the ground during a gallop. This achievements not only settled the debate but also marked a significant milestone in the history of photography and the study of motion.

In 1879 he invented the Zoopraxiscope, and was built for him by January 1880 to project his famous chronophotographic pictures in motion. This device was essentially an early form of a motion picture projector. It utilized a series of glass discs, each containing sequential images from Muybridge’s motion study, he had an unidentified artist that painted each sequence onto each plate. When rotated at high speeds and projected onto a screen, these images created an illusion of continuous motion, captivating audiences with moving pictures long before the advent of modern cinema.

I think this part of history has influenced the modern day world by giving the photography world a solid fundament. How the cameras is changing every year to get better and have even more insane technology. It’s fascinating to learn how they took images like this before, now we can either film a movie in slow motion to see frame by frame or take a timelapse to see how things are moving or growing. We can just put our camera up and press a button and the camera will do “everything” for us.

LT 1.2 Understanding the industry

The Task

Find a motion design studio or freelancer and give some examples of their work.

  • What type of motion design do they specialise in?
  • Where are they from?
  • What do you like about their work?
    •  
Sandnes Media
  • What type of motion design do they specialise in?

Sandnes Media is an awardwinning studio that makes illustrations, animation and design. They make alot of books and animationmovies for children. Their “design universes” are Dektektivbyrå nr 2, krypto, trollmann skogen, Alf Prøysens Barnesanger and Anne-Cath. Vestly.

  • Where are they from?

They are based in my hometown Sandnes, Norway.

  • What do you like about their work?

When I searched for a motion design studio I wanted to see whats in my area. I didn’t know that a studio that produce illustrations, animations and designs for these well known books and movies where based in my hometown. So that was fun to find out.

 

First, I liked their homepage, it shows alot of their work and are easy to navigate. I also like that they show images from the production, where you can see that they make alot of drawings, painting and 3d moddelering, they build miniatures and put everything together.

LT 1.3 Workflow

The Task

Oh no! You’ve taken over a project from a colleague. Their folder structure and naming conventions are non-existent. Have a look at their project folder below:

Before jumping into the project, it’s a good idea to sort out this mess.

Download these loose files.

Create folders and rename the files according to what you’ve learnt in this lesson.

LT 1.4 Pre-Production

The Task

Style frames You are a concept artist, and the director of their new TV commercial has asked you to explore some style tests. They don’t want to stifle your creativity, so they have asked you to pick any simple object and illustrate it in three unique ways.

Step 1

Find three different styles on your favourite reference site (Dribbble, Behance, Artstation, etc.).

Drawing
2D Gradient
2D Flat

Step 2

Pick a simple object.

Step 3

Illustrate that object three times to match the references you found.

Step 4

Upload your style frames to your WordPress blog.

2D Flat
2D Gradient
Drawing