Dyslexia Motion Design

A design analysis and reflection of my ‘What is dyslexia’ motion animation.

Project Outcomes

Overall, I believe my motion design was successful as I was able to implement techniques and fundamentals of design that I had previously struggled with earlier in the semester.

Technical achievement and use of design fundamentals:

From task one’s abstract shape animation, I have learnt many new motion design techniques. The first instance of this is using the ‘puppet pin tool’ in Adobe After effects. I was researching how and the limitations to animating illustrations and placing facial expressions over characters in After Effects. I found the ‘puppet pin tool’ useful as between key frames I could move character elements to make them seem as if talking, waving, or expressing emotions. This was not only fun but useful as I hope to develop this skill more in the future as I have noticed a growing demand in illustrative motion design.

The second technical achievement, was using a verity of motion design principles such as easing objects in and out of screen, parenting illustrative elements, overlaying and cloning elements to create complex systems cloning. I wanted to display a dynamic use of motion design and I believe I accomplished this in my project as different scenes and compositions draw on these principles to transition to the next component.

Project goals:

I set out to develop and produce a design motion animation on the topic of dyslexia from a personal perspective, I believe I accomplished this. However, the representation was different to my original goal of just kinetic type. I moved away from kinetic type alone as I realized it would be more beneficial for my target audience (neurotypicals) to have illustrations to show, not tell, the concept.

Learning opportunities and analysis

Critical moments:

• Choosing late in the semester to illustrate my motion design project, rather then relying on kinetic type alone. I was worried at first that a sudden change would be catastrophic for the project as it was different to just kinetic type. I chose to go ahead as I thought it would improve the projects’ ability to communicate the topic of dyslexia as many audiences are visual learners. From this I learnt how to layer and masks and key frame character facial expressions in Adobe After Effects. As a result, my illustrations are more expressive and support the audio and with motion design that emulates speech.

• This may be a simple one, but in my task one animation I had used one composition as I had not figured out how to layer compositions at the time. Now, from this task I have used multiple compositions to create the final motion design project. This definitely benefited the overall design file management and my future working process.

• At the start of the project, I was not necessarily going to use my own voice as audio for the animation. However, dyslexia is a personal topic that I wanted to represent from my own perspective. The addition of the audio added an extra layer to the motion design as many of the illustrations and shapes react to the context of the audio and made it easier to envision and create the story board.

Future

At first, I was struggling to movie my illustrated figures, however, since problem solving and testing movements, I have really enjoyed this form of motion design. I may create a miniseries in this motion design aesthetic, on the topic of dyslexia, as there is still a lack of information to the public regarding personal experiences of dyslexia.

In terms of my curer, I can easily see a use of motion design in websites, UI, and advertisement. One great example, that I aspire for, is the recent Petbarn visual identity update by Landor. I like the minimal but affective use of character motion design in the logo to give the company more personality. Hopefully, i can implement my skills to one day work with larger companies to create motion design identities.