Tag: motion graphics

Steam engine illustration from The Way Things Work (1967)

Animating How Things Work

The MFA students in my Advanced Motion Graphics class were tasked with creating a project that would act as thesis support. Because I was only in my first semester of my grad studies, I really wasn’t sure what I should do. I wanted to make something didactic, and considered doing some sort of data visualization, a user interface, and also just supplemental graphics, but decided on trying to animate some Crazy Global Warming Solutions from an Information is Beautiful data set.

I did three style tests of wind-powered kiteships:

I wasn’t 100% sold on just one of these styles, so I dug for more inspiration. In my searching, I came across a copy of The Way Things Work: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Technology at a friend’s house, and fell in love with the book’s illustration style:

Steam engine illustration from The Way Things Work (1967)

So I changed course and decided to make an explainer animation of the steam engine illustration. I redrew all the pieces in Illustrator, and animated everything in After Effects. Sound effect sources credited below.

I’d like to eventually revisit this and expand on it more, showing in a bit more detail of how each of the parts work.

Final product:

Sound effects from freesound.org:

Button Tick by NenadSimic | License: Creative Commons 0
spring .wav by PasekaM | License: Creative Commons 0
SPRING 02.wav by sandyrb | License: Attribution
01952 reel spinning wheel.wav by Robinhood76 | License: Attribution Noncommercial
wrenches_rustle_clank.wav by vibe_crc | License: Creative Commons 0
Socket Wrench by TheGertz | License: Attribution
Wrench hit A#4 by jorickhoofd | License: Attribution
stomps robot walk.wav by ErikH2000 | License: Attribution
Clank1.wav by BMacZero | License: Creative Commons 0

Kinetic Type

This was a pretty straightforward assignment: Find a :30-2:00 clip of audio and animate type to match it in a style that compliments the content. One of my favorite movies is Groundhog Day, and I chose to use one of my favorite scenes—Phil’s dire prediction for Rita.

Aside from laying out all the text in Illustrator first, all the work was done in After Effects, so I don’t have much in the way of process documentation. The typeface used is Proxima Soft, and Artbeats’ Frosty Window Tutorial helped me get the cold effect I wanted for the end.

I’m generally happy with how it turned out, but if I had time to do it over again, I would plan things out slightly better so that the movement wasn’t so frenetic, especially in the middle.

Final product:

Ender's Game| Animated Book Title screenshot

Animated Book Title

The brief for this project was called “Line Versus Type”, and asked us to choose a book and animate the title—exploring the interaction of lines and typography. I immediately thought of Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, and how I could use elements from the story to construct the title.

I chose a retro-futuristic sci-fi style to elicit a feeling of the game/battle simulation from the book. The typeface I ended up using was Anurati by Emmeran Richard, it perfectly fit the vibe I was going for.

Type exploration, scene design, and storyboarding was all done in Illustrator, then brought into After Effects and animated. Sound effects are all from freesound.org, and credited in the final video below.

Process:

Final product: