Gifs
Capturing Motion in Moments: Original GIF Designs That Tell a Story
Overview
A gif (pronounced Jif), which is an acronym for Graphics Interchange Format, is simply an image file. Unlike other types of image files, a gif is usually animated. Gifs have a small file size which means that they typically do not have any sound attached to the file. Gif's can be used for many different purposes but are most used to show short snippets of a movie or tv show.
Initial Gif- BIC Lighter
Final Gif- Lightsaber Activating/Spinning w/ Binary Sunset on the fictional planet Tatooine
Design process
Initial attempt
A lot of designers use photoshop to create different gifs from scratch. I also used photoshop to create my first attempts and I am happy with how these turned out. I used a new technique called Tweening for the first attempts and it usually only works with objects created in photoshop. This technique was useful in my first attempt.
I started some initial sketches to explore the layout, structure, and composition, considering which elements I want emphasis on in the front, spine, and back. This stage helped solidify the direction for each version of the cover and allowed me to visualize how each element would interact across all the covers and what I needed to revise.
Final Gif design
This is my second final attempt at a gif and it was a lot of fun to design because it revolved around something that I love. I decided to create a gif depicting a lightsaber activating, spinning, and then retracting. I first chose an image that I really liked, then proceeded to trace and paint over it in Adobe Illustrator. Once I finished the lightsaber completely, I then created a glow to go around the lightsaber for when it is activated. After three different attempts at creating a background, I finally created something that I really loved. The background depicts the Binary sunset from the fictional planet, Tatooine, from Star Wars. I transferred all of the objects from Illustrator to Adobe Photoshop and began animating. This process was long and tedious, yet I am so happy and proud of the final outcome.
Final process images
