10 easy steps to keep you cool while creating motion graphics for beginner
- Aidahaniza Taib
- Sep 3, 2021
- 5 min read
Updated: Sep 22, 2021
Hello ALL. This is my first time writing the article here. I hope it helps some beginners to start creating their motion graphics and keep them sane while doing the editing. HAHAHA. To be honest, I started to do motion graphics during my internship in Red Communications, a Production house for well-known films and series such as Gol & Gincu, KAMI, Oh My English! and bla bla(can't remember hiks). If you watch My Penang(AFC Channel-2015), you can see some of my graphics in there too. --> watch intro:
Well, that was 7 years ago. And I showed this video during my first interview with Caffebene, and here where I started my career as a Graphic Designer. I don't know, can I call it Motion Graphic Designer as well? hiks. Doesn't matter actually, the experience matters. I worked for few brands as well such as Unidyo(E-Learning), Maison de Gigi, and Juicy. (I'll talk about this in another article)
SO LET's START WITH THE 10 STEPS I WANT TO TALK ABOUT.
1. For every visual graphic you want to start with, you must have an OBJECTIVE, at least. The MAIN GOAL makes your job flow smoothly and you'll know what you want to do next. If you suddenly out of the track, try to get back to the objective. DOES IT MEET THE OBJECTIVE? In some cases, goals might change, and it depends on your boss. If there's an addition in objectives, just arrange it from most to least important. So you will know what to prioritize in your presentation and still can meet the objectives. But usually, there's nothing much changes in objectives. Just adding a few lines in their proposal papers to make it look nice. NICE but STILL the SAME OBJECTIVE.
2. Then only we do the complete brief. HAHAHA. Why this comes to the second? Because when you know the objectives, it will be easier to elaborate on the brief more. You don't want to complicate yourself with other details first while the objective still not clear enough. For this, I'll provide you the easiest creative brief link: What Your Creative Brief Should Include. If it just a simple motion graphic, maybe you will just need to know the duration, video size, target audience, and the message.
3. Next, come out with a proper script. A script that tells a story. A motion graphic does not start with a storyboard. The storyboard will come along while brainstorming the visual treatment. From here we already know how many characters in this motion graphics, what will be on the screen, and which part we will be using the voice over.
4. You now already have a complete brief and proper script. I'm sure you can imagine a bit of how it gonna look like. But if you still don't have any visualization on this, IT'S OKAY. Instead of worrying about how it gonna look like later on, try to take your pen or pencil and start drafting. If visualization doesn't work, I'll always try to sketch somewhere anything, even a simple circle... then come to square... Well, you need to START SOMEWHERE. Let me show how I started to do the video for Unidyo E-Learning in 2015. My senior designer, Jeen helped me a lot with this. (Most of the handwriting was actually hers) . Perhaps through this step, you can imagine about 20% of the flow.
5. OKAY for this part you need to be very careful. If you do it nicely, you might not need to worry to change some of the motion graphics if the bosses don't really like the outcome. Here is my tips:
Create a character if you need a character. Make sure the character follows the brand tonality and does not represent or almost similar to the other competitor. This character can be something that people always remember, and it belongs to the brand.
Put it in different layers in Illustrator, with the correct layer name. For example, for one frame might have background, character, main items, and miscellaneous item. You can decide which one is moving and which one is not from here. But if you can't decide, at least by putting it in different layers might help smooth transition in After Effects.
Set each frame with different composition. Well for this part actually it depends on how the transition will be like. Sometimes 2 frames work in the same composition. You can combine all these compositions later in the main composition. By doing separate composition actually can save you a lot of time and if there are any changes needed at the last minutes, you can just adjust the specific composition without ruining the whole combined composition. You can even duplicate the composition and create the second main composition. This means you can show a few proposals to the boss and save time too!
Don't worry if you kinda lost on what action to apply on certain layers. Ask your team. They might have different imaginations from yours. Then.. just Youtube it!. Yeah, I learnt a lot from Youtube video too. Just find it with different keywords until you found the right tutorial. If you have extra budget, maybe you can buy the vfx, it is easier. But remember, this article is for the beginner. You might want to brag more on how you did it for the first time or to make it interesting if the hiring manager asking you on how you made this.
6. Animate the final design. Well, for me this is the crucial part. If you choose to have 30 frames per second, means you need to think deeper, on how to make this transition in this 30fps. The higher the frames in the second, the transition will look even smoother. But 30 is high actually. If there are tiny particles in the video, maybe you will need to use 60fps. See this: Caffè Bene It really makes me feel like I have 60fps in real life. The thought that rushing you to get into each millisecond, but you can control it because you can see each frame.
7. FINE-TUNE and DOUBLE-CHECK your final render. If you do your motion graphic according to the steps, you will never worry to change the sequence later. By doing this too might help your team to understand the flow better and they can help to do the amendment in the future if need to do so.
8. Practice.
9. Practice again.
10. Make another motion graphic! hehehe
If you are reading this until the end, thank you so much. Please leave a comment if you have any comments so I can improve in my next article. :)
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