Created: February, 2024
Dimensions: 1920 x 1080 px
Skills Used: Animation / Motion Graphics
Class: New Media Design Animation
Prompt
The prompt for this project was to create a personal mandala that is representative of you. The idea of a mandala throughout this project could be as abstracted as we wanted as long a mandala forms a presence at some point in the animation. Mandalas are usually very symmetrically balanced in the form of a circle or square and symbolic in nature.
Project Goals
I wanted to take this chance to be able to highlight a journey myself and many others take throughout life. Everyone deals with ups and downs in life and I wanted to represent some of those ups and downs in this project. The music choice used in this animation is reflective of my personality and represents the journey I have endured so far.
Tools Used
Illustrator ···
After Effects ·····
Audition ·
Storyboard
Development of Poster Shots
My ending shot of my animation that creates an abstracted mandala using various design principles such as radial balance and symmetry.
This shot takes place in the middle of the animation and is the dynamic climax of the project. This shot symbolizes the point of improvement or the "up" in our life.
Animation Process Work
This project taught me a lot about to set myself up for success when working with animation. I learned how to create an efficient and organized workflow utilizing tools such as pre-compositions, layer naming, and color coding layers to keep track of layers and sections. I also learned about marking music cues on the timeline in After Effects to be able to mark off when specific things needed to happen. This allowed me to plan ahead and make working through each chunk of animation a lot more simple.
What I Learned
This project challenged me and taught me a lot of new things I hadn't particularly practiced as a designer. This project got me to think in terms of motion rather than a static image and taught me that the basic principles of animation are powerful tools to create compelling designs. Along with this, it taught me many new tools in After Effects such as mastering the graph editor as well as more advanced techniques such as effect controllers. Lastly, this project really pushed me to develop a storytelling element which was something I had never really done before in a design. It forced me to reflect on my life and myself and create something compelling that represented myself.