What is Motion Graphics?
Francis Francia
1/13/11
In this time everything is fast, communications, travel, the exchange of information and media. For instance TV Ads, News Graphics, Music Videos, has evolved over the years. Most of these mediums has Motion Graphics in them, which is really attention grabbers.Programs on Televisions and Movies has become image conscious that it demanded more sophisticated Motion Graphics. Having said this we are now on visual era, we like to be entertained on what we see, and Motion Graphics is one way to amuse us.I searched the Internet trying to find a formal definition of Motion Graphics, also known as Motion Design, but I found none. So I thought of asking people known in the industry through twitter.
Among them was Tim Clapham, he answered: “design that moves”.
Another is Chad Perkins: ” I would probably define it literally: the animation of text and graphics.”
Lastly is John Dickinson, I never got any answer personally but what he did is brought it up on his forum on Motionworks, which received a lot of response. Everyone has a definition of Motion Graphics, each to his own and it became a healthy conversation and exchange of thoughts.
Lots of answers were given, like; "a canvas for express yourself", someone answered that its his way of life, and it's a way of storytelling, and a lot more.
Head on to Motionworks to see the discussions.
MY TAKE
The first humans were primitive cavemans, they draw on caves through carving its walls. Some of these are sequences of drawings as if it's moving. It means that during the early days of man, there's already a perceived sense of motion. So we are naturally engaged or entertained if we see a moving image.
Personally I can say that Motion Design is a digital (since it's displayed on digital mediums, such as computers, led/lcd displays, TV) artform that involves animation of graphics, text and videos, which is mostly accompanied by music/audio.
As stated on Wikipedia, there's really no formal definition of Motion Design/Graphics.
With the advent of technology and access to cheaper hardware, you can easily create a motion graphic nowadays. The most popular programs/software includes:
Adobe After Effects
Apple Motion
Autodesk Combustion
Nuke
Recently Motion Graphics contains 3d animation, most programs/software used are:
Autodesk Maya
Autodesk 3ds Max
Maxon Cinema 4D
Blender
Lightwave
On my personal observation, Motion Design is an unseen art. If you ask people who are not on the industry, they do not know about it, although you can see them all over the place wherever you go. If you will watch a one hour TV program(ads included), 40-60 percent is Motion Design, yet it remains unnoticeable.
Below are the popular applications of Motion Graphics.
TELEVISIONS:
*Show Openers- shown before a program starts, it gives the idea on what the show is all about and it's theme, and sets the mood of the audience.
*News Graphics- most of these graphics are sophisticated, you can see this at the start, transitions to live report, and before commercial breaks.
*Lower Third- basically occupies the lower third portion of the screen, on tv shows and news, it contains the name of the hosts, guests, reporters. On news it also contains the headlines and the location where an event is happening.
*Station ID- all TV stations have network ID, this is basically to tell the audience what station they're watching.
*Bumpers- transition between programs and commercials.
WEB:
*Animated gifs
*Ad banner
*Header
DVD/BLURAY:
*Menus
*Interface
ALMOST EVERYWHERE:
*Videowall- as a means of advertisement
*Dance Clubs
*Sports Bar
*Waiting Areas and Lobbies
*Live Performance
*Shopping Malls
all these to set the mood and provide information.
We can talk about these all day and never ran out of ideas. The future of Motion Design is promising as we'll see more innovations and ideas. More and more people will dive in to the industry as access to software and hardware is easy, and knowledge to software is within a touch of fingertips through watching or downloading tutorials on the internet.
It's easy to manipulate the software, creating a design that communicates to the audience should be a priority in every Motion Design.
(Note: all images used on this post are property of motiondesignstuff, please don't use without permission.)
Posted in
3ds Max,
After Effects,
After Effects CS5,
Apple Motion,
Broadcast,
Cinema 4D,
Download,
Lightwave,
Maya,
Nuke
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