Motion design, commonly referred to as motion graphics is the term used for when we see graphics (illustration, lines, shapes, colour), typography (words, headlines, body copy), imagery (photography and scanned images) and 3D elements move around on screen.
Sometimes motion design or motion graphics is referred to as animation. While this is technically true (since a motion designer's method to move elements is via animation), 'animation' traditionally refers to the technique used to create film such as Cinderella, Toy Story or Minions. Think Pixar, classic Disney, anime and is usually about characters and story. A whole world brought to life frame by frame.
On the other hand, motion design is the fusing together of the combination of static designed elements, created by a graphic designer and setting them all in motion. It's usually about communication. Explaining an idea, branding a product, guiding a user, or just making something look great for anything between 5 seconds to 2 minutes. When I make anything move on screen it's always to communicate an idea, offer, event or generate emotion and set the tone for an audience.
Motion designers aren't typically animating animals or characters with feelings and a backstory. We're animating a chart that builds itself on screen, a logo that assembles out of nothing, or text that lands in perfect rhythm with a voiceover and audio track.
There's plenty of overlap of course. I know lots of motion designers who dabble in character work, and plenty of animators who do brand stuff on the side.
My clients are typically based in FMCG, Finance, Fintech and Pharma. Most of the time I'm requested to create motion graphics to highlight campaigns on social media, internally for in-house teams, during events using client's branding and to promote new products.
You've probably seen motion design fifty times today already and have no idea what the medium's called:
Long before 'motion graphics' was a phrase, experimental filmmakers in the 1920s were animating shape and colour just to see what would happen. The discipline's roots trace back to the abstract animated films made by artists like Walther Ruttmann, Hans Richter, Viking Eggeling, and Oskar Fischinger. No clients, just people treating colour and shape like instruments in an orchestra.
One of my favourite motion designers for film is Saul Bass. He showed up and ruined boring movie credits forever. With Otto Preminger's The Man with the Golden Arm in 1955, Bass pioneered the notion that opening credits didn't have to be a static list of names. They set the entire emotional tone of a film before it even started. A few years later he'd go on to design the main titles for three of Hitchcock's most famous films Vertigo, North by Northwest, and Psycho, between 1958 and 1960. Without knowing it, he'd invented 'the cool opening credits sequence' as a thing.
The actual term 'motion graphics' dates to 1960. Animator John Whitney launched a studio called Motion Graphics, Inc. to produce animated titles and logos, which connected experimental film with commercial broadcast work. TV broadcasters were doing something similar around the same time. The BBC had designers like Bernard Lodge on staff from 1959 on, creating some of the earliest Doctor Who title sequences.
Then computers arrived and cracked the whole thing wide open. CoSA, founded in Providence, Rhode Island in 1990, put out the first version of a program called After Effects (my motion design software of choice). Two years later, they got bought by Aldus Corporation in 1993, which was itself swallowed by Adobe in 1994. After Effects is still the industry's main tool although many others exist now including Cavalry, Rive and Moho.
So the whole picture goes something like this:
A very neat summary for something most people don't even realise has a name.
Great graphic design always comes before great motion design (design before motion is my favourite mantra). In my opinion, if you're not working from designs created by someone who knows what they're doing, then no amount of motion design is going to make those pixels look good.
That initial static design has to be effective on it's own before anything starts to move - you can't build the house without solid foundations.
So I always start with a solid design, whether it's created by myself or by an in-house graphic designer. Once that's locked down, here are a few questions I ask my clients before I start pushing pixels around the screen:
Is it, for example:
Once these details have been nailed, I'll then ask from this exhaustive list based on...
This pretty much sums up my pre-production process for how I make anything move. I know exactly what I'm producing and how it fits into the clients' branding and funnel.
I can then get my hands dirty with the fun motion design work...
Most motion designers, whether a 2D or 3D designer (or both), use at least one of these software tools:
Adobe After Effects
Cavalry
Rive
Moho
Cinema 4D
Blender
Many more exist. Other tools such as editing software (Adobe Premiere Pro) and design software (Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop) go hand-in-hand in a motion designer's toolset.
I've used After Effects and Premiere interchangeably for the last 20 years, as well as their design tools. Adobe have made it much more easier over the years to work quickly with all their software releases.
The platform your motion design work sits on also dictates what you use to build it with. Interactive animation for web and mobile is typically built in Rive and Lottie.
But the majority of people in the industry will use After Effects for their motion design work.
To develop a career in motion graphics, you should focus on building certain skills and practices with the software you use. These habits are the ones I've put in place over the years:
To master motion graphics, you need to be prepared to spend long hours learning the software and reading up to understand the principles of design. My learning never ends, there's always a new technique, script or plug-in to try out which may make my work more efficient and eye catching for the client.
That said, you should experiment with basic designs as soon as you have that limited knowledge. Don’t try to know everything before you start work, it’s just not possible and could hinder your development.
From films and ad campaigns, there’s so much epic motion graphic design to explore. Watch the opening credits of films like Catch a Thief to learn from Saul Bass, for example.
I nearly didn't add this heading - I've heard many people say you should find your style but really this depends on who you want to serve. Many motion designers have their own unique approach and signature look. This can get picked up by advertisers and producers wishing to use your style in their production. I'm more of a generalist and prefer to work with a client's branding. It may help to think about what inspired you to try motion design in the first place. I was mesmerised by Channel4 and BBC2 idents as a kid (still am) so a good place to start would be to go by your gut feeling.
Without Disney's 12 principles of animation, your motion graphics work will look dull and lifeless. Throw yourself into principles including squash and stretch, anticipation and timing to really add organic movement to your work.
It's not enough to be able to animate graphics well. Once you're complete on your timeline you then need to export to the correct format for the platform your work lives on. I usually export films to one of 2 formats: .mpg (H264) or .mov (Quicktime pro-res) formats for animation from After Effects. Although knowledge of static formats works well too especially when you need to re-import a still frame from your timeline into your project.
There's so much more knowledge readily available to new starters in the industry compared to when I started in 2000. Follow tutorials on YouTube and Instagram, it's all free. My advice would be to throw yourself into the program of your choice and just start.
We're drowning in content nowadays and attention spans are measured in seconds. Motion catches the eye in a way a static images just can't. It can explain something complicated faster than a paragraph of text ever could which is why you'll watch a 30-second explainer video before you'll read a page of instructions. And it gives products a sense of personality: the difference between an app that feels cheap and one that feels genuinely nice to use often comes down to a hundred tiny motion details you never consciously clock.
I started out in motion design because I was amazed by how animating a set of graphics can add meaning, knowledge and instruction to a simple message that is otherwise ignored if that message were stuffed into a 100 page pdf document that nobody reads.
If you want your brand to be recognised during its next promotion or campaign, have a look at the possibilities of what I can help with on my reel and drop me a line.
