This exercise focuses on exploring an alternative graphic design history, working with provided design materials, and experimenting with creating a moving poster. You will animate a poster or image from the People’s Graphic Design Archive, which is a crowd-sourced virtual archive of many graphic design mediums. The technical skill development of this exercise involves integrating Photoshop and “3D” space in After Effects to make your posters come to life.
“The People’s Graphic Design Archive aims to challenge the status quo of graphic design archives. This archive is a grassroots effort built from the ground up rather than the top down.
[They] aim to:
- Expand graphic design history to uncover and include the works and histories of Black, Latinx, Indigenous, LGBTQIA+, women, and other historically marginalized designers and allied professionals.
- Expand the canon beyond institutions of design that are historically privileged and homogenizing.
- Expand the definition of graphic design.
- Preserve works that weren’t previously considered worthwhile.
- Encourage The People to determine and save our collective history!”
Parameters/Process
Click to see Content Recreate an existing poster and animate the text and graphics. You may choose to recreate some of the poster elements or “cut it up” in order to animate the different assets. Focus on using Photoshop and spatial aspects in After Effects like 3D space. If you need to recreate some type due to poor image quality – try identifying the font through What the Font or Fonts In Use. Download Poster Frame Storyboard 3 different posters Credit the Designer Change Size of Poster Make it Loop Read This Poster Design is On the Move: But Where is it Going? – read this one to see a break down of what works well in a few different poster examples.
Investigate the archives. Narrow your choices to at least 3 different posters or a designs in a vertical format. Choose designs that list the Creator and/or include a good description to provide context to the design. Conduct a brief amount of research about the designers and share with the class. Right-Click and Save Image As to download images.
Go to Google Drive to Download the “moving poster” folder. The illustrator file includes a border that I want you to put over your poster in After Effects. Before you bring the illustrator file into After Effects however, you will change the “description” and the “designed by” text in the illustrator file. Make sure to install the typeface provided first.
Storyboard and brainstorm ideas for how to bring these posters to life. Which inspire motion? Which have a story to tell through motion? How can you deconstruct and reconstruct the image? What approach or method for the moving poster will you take?
Include the creator’s name in the poster/animation to provide credit. Change the info in the peoples_archive_border_1080x1920.ai file that is in the Google Drive Folder above.
You will need to change the size of your poster to fit a 1080×1920 aspect ratio. Don’t stretch the image however – keep it proportional. Just increase the negative space around the design if you need to.
Make the animation/poster loop. Ideas for looping: You can plan ahead for this in the design, have it start and begin on a clean slate, or you could have it go forwards and then backwards? In your timeline, have it loop around and play at least twice. So you would just Duplicate your Poster Comp and put them back to back in the timeline.
The Moving Poster – Click on Spectrum and read the various methods.
Identify which method on the moving poster spectrum you ended up choosing.
Final Specs
Click to see Size: Final export with provided poster frame is 1080×1920.
Frame Rate: 24fps
Length: 10-15 seconds
Loop: The poster animation needs to be a continuous seamless loop.
Content: Animate text and graphics from the existing poster. You may choose to recreate some of the poster to make it higher quality or cut it up to use the different assets. Focus on using Photoshop and spatial aspects in After Effects like 3D. Credit the Designer and Title on the provided peoples archive border.
Format: H.264 .mp4 movie file uploaded to Vimeo or YouTube and linked to Slack Channel.
Inspiration
Student Examples
Professional Examples
Helpful Articles
Objectives/Evaluation
Click to see
Rubric
Click to see Pre-Production (6pts) Project (25pts)
Schedule
Click to see 10.26 – Project assigned. 10.28 – Look at inspiration, poster choices/research, and storyboards 11.2 – Show halfway progress on Exercise6 Slack Channel. 11.4 – Exercise 6 due.
For next class:
Deliverables
Click to see Preproduction work during project: