Branding Animation for Kaylou Graphic Design
Welcome back to my major project blog!
I am currently in the process of researching, developing and prototyping my concepts and ideas for my branding animation project for Kaylou Graphic Design (Lupton, 2011).
So far, I have not deviated from my pitched proposal, and still aim on making a series of short, animated logos that represent unique brand identities and systems. I have been designing and drafting logos and brands on Adobe Illustrator, keeping in mind how I want these to be animated.
Here are the list of potential brands I could developed:
Here we see my logo development:
These logos are fairly simplistic with minimal elements, as I want the animation to star and really bring the logos and their personalities to life. This will be the case across all my logos. This will hopefully also make the animation part less complex and confusing, as I am still learning the software. These logos however are open for iteration as I conduct my project. If I feel the animation would work better with slight changes, or better an effect or motion than I will change them as I see fit.
All of these logos represent their own industry or brand that differs to the others. I want to display a diverse design style to highlight my range in skill and branding. They also all feature the brand name ‘Kaylou’ as I want to have one cohesive element that ties the animations together, whilst linking back to Kaylou Graphic Design. In this way, they act as examples or demonstrations for Kaylou’s potential clients.
Whilst conducting my research on the animation part itself, I found several inspiring animations on pinterest.
These can be seen here, but there is also a selection below:
I really enjoyed how these animations felt seamless. They had a cohesive flow about them that I really liked. They also used animation in a way that helped build the logo or add to it. They used bold yet simple colouring and negative space to surround the centrepiece of the logo. This draws your attention immediately to the logo. Primary motion is the main design element with elements moving, growing and morphing in interesting ways (Krasner,2013). Secondary motion is barely used, but I think that is for a good reason. The choregraphed movements already make the animation busy and engaging enough on its own.
I plan to take inspiration from these animations by following the same principles and design elements of primary motion, colour, design elements and simplistic yet engaging movements and effects.
Each animation used various approaches and techniques that I had not yet considered. However, looking at these animations I keep thinking how on earth did they do that?
I started my prototyping by taking my first logo ‘Kaylou Graphic Design’ and importing it as a shape layer into Abode After Effects (Ambrose & Harris, 2009). I then played around with the pen tool and began moving the points every few frames to make the letter forms gradually fill out. I like how this looked and thought of doing something fun with the ‘O’. Using positioning, skew and easy ease I made the ‘O’ jump up from the base of the ‘L’. Despite never having done something like this before, I was very happy with the result. I wanted this logo to be the most simplistic out of all the logos.
Here are some other experiments/animations I’ve done! I think going forward, I want to make these loop with the same image start and finish.
Given the success of this experiment, I knew that each logo would be a process of trial and error and simply playing around with the technical to make the mental image in my mind come alive.
For techniques I was unsure of, I sought help from YouTube tutorials, however for the most part I just figured it out using the skill I already have. Having said this, I am taking baby steps and not trying to go too crazy. My aim was to keep it fairly simple from the start.
This process is not a short one and does take a considerable amount of time, so I might have to cut back on the logos and simply animate as much as I can. Hopefully I will make roughly 6 or 7 logo animations, but we will see how I go.
Stay tuned for an update!
By Kayla
References
Ambrose, G., Harris, P (2009) Design Thinking. AVA Publishing, Crans-pres-Celigny, CHE, UNITED KINGDOM.
Krasner, J (2013) Motion Graphic Design: Applied History and Aesthetics. Taylor & Francis Group, Oxford, UNITED KINGDOM.
Lupton, E (ed.) 2011, Graphic Design Thinking : Beyond Brainstorming, Princeton Architectural Press, New York. Available from: ProQuest Ebook Central.
Capture By Kayla 