Are you looking for ways to grab your audience’s mind’s eye and deliver your message with flair? Use motion design! Motion design is becoming increasingly important know-how these days and in this article, we will take a look at what it is and how to get started.

Motion design is one of the best design fields you can learn these days. Its demand is hitting the ceiling and the good thing about learning motion design is that you will get exposed to opportunities from a range of creative professions. Besides, motion design is fun and rewarding discipline. 

• Tips for Easy Motion Design

So what exactly is it?

What is Motion Design?

Basically, motion design is the exercise of using design principles to create simple but effective pieces of animation for video production, web-based platforms, TV or film through the use of animation and visual effects. These include animated text, films, web-based animations, etc. Motion design can even include training videos, explainer videos, or TV shows.

With the advancement in technology these days, the availability of tools that allow the creation of motion graphics such as Adobe After Effects has made it easy for graphic designers to create and modify graphics. Creation of web-based animation has also been made easier through the use of Adobe Flash.

A professional motion designer is capable of adding the elements of sound, time, and space to create awesome pieces of animation.

Should You Learn Motion Design?

Well, motion design is a discipline that involves skills and it may not be the easiest option for you if you are planning to apply it in the creative field. However, only a few people are learning it and that gives you a huge competitive advantage if you learn it.

Having the skills in motion design qualifies you to work in the following fields.

• Movie and animation studios
• Advertising and design agencies
• Video game and TV companies, and
• Web development companies

The demand for motion graphics is expected to go higher as the world becomes more digital and internet connections and devices become faster. Therefore, it is important to learn this discipline and widen your options for landing your dream job.

How to Get Started with Motion Design

When you animate content, you give it life. You make it exciting. Animation brings static objects to life. Animated software helps human when it comes to problem-solving.

As technology continues to evolve, Tech leaders in the industry are looking for new ways to make their products more natural. And that’s why new terminologies including Motion UX, Motion Design, and many others are being thrown left, right, and center.

This article explains the steps you need to get started with motion design. So without much ado, let’s get started.

1. Start with Observation

The first step you need to get started with motion design is to start observing things moving. This way, you will find it easy to work with them. Start observing the apps on your smartphone. How do about the motion? Why do you like the motion? Get all the tinny details about the motion. Be attentive to what is changing. Is the motion changing in shape, color, position, size? The idea is to get the motion is the whole composition.

2. Familiarize Yourself with the Tools

There are plenty of tools required when it comes to motion graphics. Before you get started with motion design, you must familiarize yourself with all the tools you will need. Most beginner motion designers use Adobe Photoshop because it’s easy to use and has plenty of options when it comes to editing. You can also get plenty of tutorials on YouTube.

But if you already know how to work with Adobe Photoshop, you can familiarize yourself with Adobe After Effects. It’s also a powerful tool when it comes to the creation of 2D animation. Adobe After Effects features plenty of effects and options to take your animation to the next level.

3. Get Familiar with the Principles

Every field has its principles that must be followed to achieve what you want. In motion design, there are principles that you must adhere to. In this case, you need to get familiar with the principles of animation. We assume you have familiarized yourself with the tools.

Remember, you are looking to create animations that feel more dynamic and can grab the audience’s imagination. The principles of animation you need to get familiar with include:

• Timing 
• Staging
• Solid drawing
• Ease-in and Ease-out
• Stretch and Squash
• Follow Through and Overlapping Action
• Arcs
• Straight Ahead and Pose to Pose
• Secondary Action
• Appeal
• Exaggeration
• Anticipation 

4. Have a Sense of Curiosity

If you want to learn things quickly, you must be curious about everything you come across. How was this animation created? Why was it created? What could be the hidden meaning behind this piece? You can download project files from platforms like holdframe.com and many others out there.

Download them and try to discover how the animations were created. They can be a great source of inspiration. You can use the knowledge you acquire to create your own animation.

5. Love Your Work

Well, if you really want to become a professional designer, you’ve got to love what you do. This is something you cannot avoid unless you are just doing it for fun. After all, motion design isn’t just a job but a passion you need to cultivate from deep with you. You will at some point be required to work on shitty projects or work with nasty clients. And that’s part of the job.

You just need to know that love concurs and if you can love your job then you will be ready to do it whether you are asked to work on shitty projects or you are dealing with horribly clients. Most people think that the only time you should showcase your best work is when working on your own projects. If you find that what you are doing isn’t fulfilling, start doing what your heart desires and the suitable projects will follow your way.

6. Know that Animation isn’t Just a Layer of Pain

The reason why big companies use web-based animation, tech companies use animated apps and advertising companies use animated text is to convey a deeper meaning. If you want to get started with motion design, you must consciously think of animations from the word go.

Once you have gone through all the steps above and you’ve reached the design stage, remember to animate your models to add that dimension of time. In the development stage, remember to split your code into segments so that you can add things fast in the user interface.

7. Network and Collaborate

Even if you familiarize yourself with the tools or practice more, if you don’t connect and collaborate with people (your friends, family, people around you, and other artists), you might find it hard to succeed with motion design. Talk to great artists and work together with them. Have a sense of fulfillment in what you do, listen to what they say.

Final Thoughts

There you have it: seven steps to getting started with motion design. To emphasize a little bit, to get started with motion design, first learn to observe things, and then learn the tools for the job and all the other things will follow.

Credits to: rawpixel, pixabay