pet projects in code, graphics, and more.
Archive for October, 2011
Work Stuff: Motion Graphics for Splash Coupons
Oct 25th
These two videos were created to help the Splash Coupons sales force. The videos were available online, and also on iPads the sales team took to appointments. After Effects was my tool of choice. It was my first project getting to use After Effects after completing training. I’m looking forward to creating better and better results in future projects.
One feature in these videos is the “traveling line effect” in the background of both videos (most visible in 2nd video). The lines were created in Illustrator using an “expanded” “blend”. This was then brought into After Effects, where a 3D camera was attached to a variation of its own path. After Effects did an amazing job of rendering the vector artwork transformed in 3D space. The voiceover was edited in Adobe Soundbooth CS5. (I’ve now upgraded to Adobe Audition as part of Adobe CS5.5).
Credits: Shana Rose (voice performance), Various iStockPhoto.com Photographers, Mike Randrup (all other roles)
This was the full product introduction video. It contains a call-to-action, directing users to an online calendar that was on the original page (but is not on this blog page).
Work Stuff: Big Brands Poster Design
Oct 10th
This print project was for www.BargainBanners.com. Over the years, they have printed banners promoting quite a few national brands. The idea for a poster to show the diverse group of companies seemed natural.
The first task was gathering logo files. Most of them were possible to take from the original banner artwork, but a few needed to be picked up from www.BrandsOfTheWorld.com as vector files. Each logo is superimposed on a small “virtual banner”, which I created in Photoshop back in 2008 as part of the BargainBanners.com logo. The background contains a lovely US Map and “light steaks” courtesy of VectorStock.com. Everything was assembled in InDesign, and output to a PDF for the poster printing.
The finished piece is 4 feet wide by about 3 feet tall, and is now hanging in their banner workshop.
Work Stuff: Loading Animation for native iPhone App
Oct 3rd
Earlier this year, I worked on the graphics used in a Native iPhone App (now live on the App Store) for www.SplashCoupons.com. The app lists offers for home improvement savings for people in the North Dallas, Texas area. When the App first launches, it downloads the latest set of coupons from a data server via XML. During this process, which can take a couple of seconds, I wanted to display a visually interesting animation. So out came the storyboard, and a new After Effects project was born.
Conceptually, the animation was designed to show a user that “coupons” are going “into their iPhone”. The After Effects project was relatively simple. The coupon image assets I created were animated along paths from off screen into the pulsing iPhone in the middle. The screen of the iPhone has an AJAX-style busy cursor superimposed on it. Two layers of After Effects “Particle Playground” effects were blending with a glow effect. Since the particle filter naturally emits from the center outward, I time reversed the particle composition so the particles would flow into the iPhone. There is a colored glow in the center, and concentric circles pulsing inward. The last element, “droplet” pieces of the Splash Coupons logo, fly outward from the phone. The color decisions were based on the style guide for the Splash Coupons logo and brand.
The end deliverable for the animation was an 18 frame looping sequence. It didn’t take up much memory or room in the IPA file, and loops to run as long as needed. I also provided several other button graphics for the user interface.
Hopefully it makes for a nicer wait as the XML downloads in the background. At any rate, it was fun to create.