ANgiE tAYLoR 🧷

Tag: media artist

  • 12 rules of animation

    Digital Arts has featured – 12 Rules of Animation – an excerpt from my “Design Essentials for the Motion Media Artist” as their feature article this month. The article is now FREELY AVAILABLE on the Digital Arts website.

    Animation as we know it has been around since Horner invented the zoetrope in 1834. Since then animators have developed rules of animation that help us to draw viewers into the world we have created. From Disney classics to the latest stereoscopic 3D productions, we’ve plundered them all to find the 12 key techniques you need to master to be a top-flight animator.

    Some of these rules are based on real-life physics, and others on observations and reactions. They provide a set of invaluable ‘tricks’ for animators that have been proven to work in almost every situation.

    In the article I delve into the world of animation to pick out the 12 rules of animation that every animator and motion graphics artist must know. Drawn from the forms 150 year history, you’ll learn a wealth of dos and don’ts that will help you produce more engaging projects, whether you’re working in 2D, 3D, graphics, stop-motion or a mixture of them all.

    You can pick up both printed copies and digital downloads from the Digital Arts website where you can also find some of my tutorials, tips and tricks.

    I’ll also be talking about some of these golden rules of animation in my “Dynamic Text Animation for Motion Graphicswith After Effects” presentation at the Production Fiesta in London on May 6th.

    In this session, I will share an in-depth look at the options for working with text in Adobe After Effects. I’ll show examples of successful motion graphic designs and will discuss the components of design that make them work. In this session you’ll earn about the rules of typography and how to apply the rules of typography to your designs to make them easier to read and more dynamic. I’ll also take an in-depth look at the typographic controls available in After Effects and will also show you how you can use hand-drawn text to bring a unique aspect to your designs.

    I’ll also be presenting four other sessions at this event which you can find out about here. If you want to register for a full day of valuable creative sessions by me and all the other speakers you can do so here on the Eventbrite page. I hope to see some of you there, please make sure to say hello if you can make it along.

     

  • Speaking at Flash on the Beach 2011

    Speaking at Flash on the Beach 2011

    I was very pleased to get a call from John Davey, the organiser of the amazingly successful and entertaining “Flash on the Beach 2011” conference, asking me to speak at his event.

    It’s an annual conference, held in my home town of Brighton. Bringing together the best designers, developers and minds in the Flash, design and web community, it’s a conference with a difference. It attracts an interesting and diverse mix of people and is focussed on the work that we do as well as the tools that we use.

    I’ll be doing a session on creating Kinetic Typography animation in Adobe After Effects CS5.5. I’ll be featuring a breakdown of a real-life art project that I worked on in collaboration with Artist Richard Walker titled “That Day”. In this session I want to focus on the design process and demonstrate how After Effects allows creative flexibility throughout a project. For my more geeky attendees, don’t worry! I’ll also share plenty of my software tips and tricks as well as important techniques for structuring projects and optimising workflow in Adobe After Effects.

    I’ll also feature some extracts from my book “Design Essentials for the Motion Media Artist” and will be giving away a copy of it, plus a copy of my “After Effects CS5 Learn by Video” training DVD. There are always lots of great parties, dinners and other networking events structured around Flash on the Beach and you’re guaranteed to meet and interesting and eclectic mix of creatives and geeky types. So why not book a place now, it sells out fast every year!

  • Is drawing important for designers?

    Is drawing important for designers?

    Drawing from Sketchbook © Angie Taylor 1999

    It’s a hot debate, as a designer, is it important to have drawing skills? I mean, you don’t need to draw anymore really? Surely computers can do it all for you now, download a few images, treat them with filters, composite them together in Adobe Photoshop – Bob’s yer uncle (as we say in the UK!)

    But drawing is not only a process used to create finished aesthetic imagery to include in a finished design, it’s much more than that. It’s a learning process that is an important stage in the development of a confident visual language. When you draw something you learn to see with a different, more focused awareness. You start to question why things appear in a certain way, as a result you can understand how things are constructed, how light interacts with surfaces and how colors affect each other. Things that may not occur to you by just simply looking at an object. you need to truly understand these things to make your drawings work. Even if you don’t like your finished drawings, that really doesn’t matter, it’s the process of losing yourself in the craft of drawing that matters.

    And it’s never too late to learn, in the Drawing chapter of my book, Design Essentials for the Motion Media Artist I talk about my mother who didn’t start drawing till she was in her 70’s. It has made a huge difference to her life and now she can draw and paint like she would never have thought. You can check out excerpts from this chapter using Amazon’s “Search Inside” feature now. The chapter also contains some of the exercises that helped me learn to draw during my time at Art College. There’s also a resources section on this website that contains some tips, tricks and links to useful tutorials, websites and a complete reading list.

    Drawing Exercise from Design Essentials book - draw 6 circular objects with the same drawing implement achieving different textures for each
    Drawing Exercise from Design Essentials book – draw 6 circular objects with the same drawing implement achieving different textures for each

    Writing this book inspired me to include more about drawing in my software tutorial too. I recently recorded a new video training workshop for video2brain on Animation Character Design in Adobe Illustrator which will be available soon. In this tutorial I showed that you don’t need to limit yourself to using traditional drawing materials. In one of the tutorials I show how to create body shapes from primitive shapes and then use Illustrators fabulous drawing tools to sculpt these into more organic shapes, it’s an addictive and very creative process.

    So, I hope that you’ll give drawing a chance, pick up whichever implement inspires you to make marks and get sketching! don’t worry about the outcome, just enjoy the process!

    Using primitive shapes in Adobe Illustrator to create complex body shapes © Angie Taylor 2010
    Using primitive shapes in Adobe Illustrator to create complex body shapes © Angie Taylor 2010
  • Adobe After Effects Training DVD and book

    Adobe After Effects Training DVD and book

    Well, it’s all happening this week! My new book, “Design Essentials for the Motion Media Artist” finally went on sale. I’m so excited and can’t wait to hear what people think of it – waiting for the first reviews is always an anxious time!

    As well as the book, I also have a new training DVD on the way which I worked on with the amazing Todd Kopriva from Adobe. “Adobe After Effects CS5 – Learn by Video” was produced by the brilliant team at video2brain and is available to pre-order now.


    As a little taster of what’s to come is available to view completely free now. Adobe After Effects CS5: Frequently Asked Questions – Zip Past Common Hurdles
    In this free course, Todd Kopriva, co-author of Adobe After Effects CS5 Learn by Video, helps you avoid common After Effects hiccups with a collection of answers to Frequently Asked Questions. Whether you´re having audio hiccups, getting pixelated vector graphics, or getting oversized files or jerky playback, Todd equips you to zip past these common hurdles and get back to creating great effects. I hope you enjoy these free tutorials and look forward to hearing your feedback.