Everything You Need to Know About Becoming a Motion Graphic Designer

With the rapid change in all the creative industries the role of Motion Graphic Designer has also changed as well as boomed. Here is everything that you must know about motion graphics and a graphic designer.

Part 1 What Projects Can a Freelance Motion Graphic Designer Work On?

01What Does a Motion Graphics Designer Do?

You can call them motion designers and they tend to work with the digitally creative industries. This means that they create artwork for television, films or webs. This includes the movie trailers, its clips, title sequence, commercials and much more. They make the use of different graphics, animations, visual effects and many other techniques so that they can bring life into the creations they made.

With the increased reach and demand of visual contents, the motion designers can have a good scope on all the digital and social media platforms. You can help in creating interactive intros, pages and other social media content. If you excelled in your field of work then you may also go for working in Hollywood movies or collaborating with big brands.

02Where Do Motion Graphics Designers Work?

Famous motion graphic designers are supposed to work in offices of motion pictures, software companies, computer systems and advertising agencies too. In such industries, there is a high scope of self-employed workers as this is a sector of skills and at the initial stage you are employed independently and later on you can collaborate with the teams.

You can also work in production houses, technical and scientific service agencies, etc. You can do the job at regular basis or you can be available for the requirements only. Also the motion designers get a chance to meet the clients and managers in order to discuss about the timelines, budgets and the goals’ of the project.

03What Skills Do Motion Graphics Designers Need?

If you want to become a motion graphic designer then you will need to possess the following skills:

● modeling - It is true that calligraphy and are still having an important place in the graphic designing sector but nowadays modeling has a different approach and reach amongst the audience and clients. This is why you must excel in creating the graphics in modeling.

● Organization -no matter if you are a freelancer or working in a team, you will need to have a proper organization of your projects as well as clients. The better your organization will the easier your projects can be.

● Lighting and texturing effects -your audience is not going to see the model that you have made. Besides they will see the final output and this is the reason why you need to pay a special attention on the texturing and lighting effects. graphics must be made in such a way that it appears to be realistic.

● Timing and adaptability -timing and adaptability are two important things that a motion designer needs to understand. As the plan can change any time so the scope and the designing will. You must be able to adapt these changes in a simple way. You will also need to focus on the timing as your graphic and motion designing must have a natural rhythm.

● Animation perspective -as you are a motion designer then you need to understand that objects do move and with it you also need to move the light sources. You should be able to design complex movements as well as a single element at a time and then spinning it in many other ways.

04How to Become a Motion Graphics Designer?

After you have gained all the skills to become a graphic designer you will need to follow some proper steps for becoming one and here mentioned are those steps:

● Earn a degree - First of all you should know that you can be a motion graphic designer without earning a degree but it is more beneficial to have one. You may have degrees in relevant fields like digital media, art, designing or such sectors.

● Learn to use the tools - Besides having the degree you should also know to use the required tools correctly. Using the tools is important to create the animations and graphics. Don’t forget to have the trials of the tools and software that you are going to use.

● Create your visual library - While learning the basic concepts you should also start creating your visual library. You may store them as photos, artwork, patterns, GIF animations, music as well as other visual components.

● Improve your knowledge by learning the principles - Learning the principles of animation and graphic is very important for starting your career as a motion designer. The basic principles of graphic motion include arcs, appeal, secondary action, staging, anticipation, squash and stretch, easy in as well as easy out and a lot more.

● Build portfolio and seek collaborations - As the clients mostly rely on the portfolios so you should make your portfolio in such a way that it attracts more clients and let you have effective collaborations. You can tell about your specialty in it so that they can know how you can help them.

● Your client base - once you have made your portfolio then it will become easy for you to have a client base. The best way to do so is to make a portfolio website that you can use to make collaborations. You can even have benefit of prior collaborations so that it helps you in building the clients.

Part 2 What is Motion Design? Graphic Design Explained

01Similarities between Motion Graphics and Graphic Design

In both of these designing sectors, the designer or artist make the use of computers for creating the graphics that are used for the purposes of informing, entertaining and persuading. Both the career options give you a chance to work with many industries and let you use the highly advanced techniques and software for creating and manipulating the effects as well as graphic designs.

If you are willing to pursue either career then you will need to have a good sense of creativity. You will also need to have visual designing skills and with it you should also be able to understand the needs and requirements of your clients. For both the career opportunities, you can work as a freelancer or even collaborate with the production or web companies.

02Differences between Motion Graphics and Graphic Design

Although you can see many similarities between motion graphics and graphic designing but there are many major differences among them too. Here are some of them:

Animation -The biggest difference that you may notice between the two is use of animations. Animations are used differently in both the sectors. Motion graphic includes the moving element whereas graphic designing do not involve such animations. Here the designers make the use of still images in the format of print or in any digital format.

Industry placement -You have to face industry placement issues while working in the graphic designing sector. When you are working in motion graphics you can work in various sectors of entertainment industry. Majority of the motion graphic designers are working as freelancers however the graphic designers tend to work with the industries like creating clothes, develop logos or designing the websites. These are not mostly self-employed and work in-house of such industries.

Part 3 The Best 5 Awesome Motion Graphic Examples You’ll Wish You Made

● Silent - This video is great to celebrate the cinema magic. You can get the glimpse of cinema in the highly created animations and graphics.

● Bing snapshot - In this video you can get the tutorial of Bing searching app that is owned by Microsoft. The animated and high graphics make it easier to learn that.

● ICT motion graphics -Through this video, you can understand the concept of using the data which is business sensitive in the process of production. You can know the paperless management of business productivity

● Google cloud IoT solutions - this video is excellent in conveying messages of hard concepts. In this video, the graphics are used to deliver the message of data collection, storage and distribution of that data.

● Long live New York -this animated video is an excellent option that delivers an extraordinary message of organ donations.

Part 4 3 Graphic Design Tips for Motion Graphics

Make the graphics from scratch: It is important to know that making graphic is not much technical. You can even make them using the scratch ideas and materials. You will need not to make many efforts in creating the graphics and you can make the things in a better way too.

Know your goals: you should know your goals before creating the graphics. This is important because goals are very much essential to create the best graphics for your clients and that suits to the needs and requirements of the particular project.

Tools: a motion designer is not complete without the proper tools. Nowadays Wondershare Filmora Video Editor is the best tool used for graphic designing.

● Key Takeaways from This Episode →