Documenting Summer Marketing

Animated Reel:

This was my first time really creating something in After Effects from scratch (that wasn’t for training). I started with some sketches De’sha and I made– which were crucial in the initial steps of building out each animated segment. (Note: I also copied the style of our pre-existing animated pre-roll)

I created the elements in a way that would allow them to be animated (ex: tassle was separate from the cap, individual dollar bills, etc.) There was a lot of back and forth between Illustrator and After Effects to make sure certain elements were suitable to be animated.

After the elements were built out, I began animating. I think in the future it would be wiser to finalize the transitions between each segment and then individually animate, but whatever process is easiest and most efficient for you is probably fine. I would save the masking of text and certain elements towards the end, once you have the transitions and smaller animations of elements done.

Tips:

• Think of creating a ‘pre-composition’ in the main Comp 1 panel as similar to creating a ‘group’ in Illustrator and Photoshop. Select a group of elements and right click -> Pre-compose… -> Enter a New composition name and click ‘OK’. Then, double click on your Pre-comp to see the individual files within it and apply edits.
• I essentially made each segment into its own composition (Top 3 Reasons, Get ahead, Affordability/Save Money, Be Anywhere, Summer logo)

• Applying Easy Ease/Ease in/Ease out can help objects appear to move more smoothly. Select your keyframes -> right click on the keyframes -> Keyframe assistant -> ‘Easy Ease’

• To create a loop, hold the option key and click on the time clock next to the transformation (position, rotation, etc.) -> click where it says “transform.position” and type/replace with loopOut(). Then all of the keyframes in the transformation should loop infinitely, and you can make adjustments as needed.

Summer Marketing Social Media:

These are all of the posts I’ve created or helped work on since my last blog update. There are also a couple of stories I helped create between these posts as well. I think my favorites so far have been the bulletin board ones, as they feel real, personal, and have lots of small fun details.

March – April Trainings

Animate Simple Course Graphics

The goal of this training is to grasp the basics of Adobe After Effects through some basic animation practice. The instructions were to animate a simple course graphics intro. Here is what I came up with!

I enjoyed working with Photoshop and After Effects to make this very simple course intro. This was a good introduction to the software. I think if I were to go back and revise it I would add some people viewing the art and make the text more colorful.

Logo Design

For this training I was tasked with creating a personal brand/logo. Here are some variations and the final chosen design.

Several elements included in the logo and how they represent me:

• Cat – because I like cats 🙂
• Cap – I wear caps a lot and usually draw myself wearing one
• Pencil – to show that I do illustration
• Star – my cat’s name is Star!
• Red Color – I use red a lot in my art, so using it here makes it recognizable as me
• Kyrartist – My “brand” name!

Logo Animation

For this training I brought the logo I just designed into After Effects to give it some movement! I learned some new techniques like the trim paths feature and how to use the graph editor.

For my first time animating a logo in After Effects I’m pretty happy with this! I like how the star looks like it’s being drawn and the subtle movement of the hand and head. If I were to revise this I would make the logo appear in a more interesting and unified way. Maybe having the head turn around and put some follow through on the hat. I would also like to add movement to the face to give it more personality. Making the eyes blink and the mouth go from neutral to smirking can really bring the logo to life and feel inviting.

Painting in Photoshop

Finally, I completed this quick Photoshop training where I got to explore the different textured brushes.

I’ve mostly used Ps for line art and more flat color illustrations, so this was a nice change of pace. I love how the coloring on the orange turned out. I like the movement in the brush strokes and the variations in hue/saturation.

One thing I would improve on for next time is to refrain from using the color picker. This would help develop my color observation skills.

APRIL 2025

— 2025 STA PRESENTATION —

This first half of this month was dedicated to the 2025 STA presentations- plenty of projects for the Design team! On top of my project for the event, I was chosen to present! I presented the IPE project alongside Lila with her talking about animation and me explaining the illustrations.

— Horizontal Presentation Poster —

I was tasked with making a single horizontal version of the posters I made earlier in the year for the video team to use in the presentation reel. This was challenging and took longer than I expected since the two posters couldn’t be put together seamlessly without editing. Regardless, I’m satisfied with the final result and was happy to see it on presentation day.

— COFA + COE Arts Integration Course Development —

In the last half of April, I began to work on the course graphics for TD 302 S Arts Integration for Multidisciplinary Connections.

I began working on the Canvas homepage banners. The client requested a total of 4 banners: 3 independent banners and 1 where the 3 banners come together seamlessly. I found this challenging since the client wanted to utilize photos of Nick Cave’s sound suits. These are very colorful and extravagant- so I had to not only ensure that I make 3 banners that come together cohesively, but also make sure the graphics don’t distract from the text.

Below are my first two passes where I explored the sound suit idea and an original graphic:

Some feedback I received:

• Have the sound suits be a connected design. Try having a textured background that corresponds to each suit.
• The professor wants to avoid the traditional mask and art motifs for theatre and visual arts respectively- so pursue the sound suit idea.

Here is my second pass with a couple of options: