Published on December 16, 2023
Although the question itself is very complicated, we, at Animoox, did our homework and at the same time procured our own thoughts to lay out some guidelines as to where animators may find their inspiration.
So, without further adieu, let’s find our design inspiration.
External influences come into play
Inspiration can come from anywhere.
Be it books, movies, or your go-to song during your lowest of times. You don’t necessarily need to stick with design-based platforms. External factors often provide unexpected inspiration and sometimes, it sparks that idea that for long wanted to keep ignited.
But of course, you should keep on exploring the very ends of Instagram, Dribble, and LottieFiles to gather some inspiration from other artists. Sometimes bits and pieces from several artists can come together to create a whole new different idea. During your ideation voyage, It’s better to save posts and create collections based on a variety of ideas, art styles, tutorials, etc.
Kick-start your animation and motion design voyage
Animation can come in various forms – 2D, 3D, hand-drawn animation, stop motion animation, and fun fact is all of them can be combined in several ways to create something far amazing.
To see which particular form clicks with you the most, you need to keep on sailing your ship until you come across your treasure of inspiration. Remember, it’s not often that you stumble across your treasure trunk but you can’t get discouraged and swim back to the shore. The ship must keep sailing!
Although there are several tools, it’s wise to choose and focus on one for a certain time before heading onto something else.
Words from the expert
With over 6 years of experience, Motion designer David Probst Jr. shared some of his guidelines in an interview with LottieFiles as to how the beginners might kick off their design journey.
According to David, it’s more essential to learn the basics of both design and animation at first. The knowledge you gain is more imperative than the tools or plugins that could get you dewy-eyed. For animators, David suggests learning Disney’s 12 Principles of Animation from the heart. He also advises reading “The Illusion of Life” and “The Animators Survival Kit”, both of which carry all the wisdom for your aesthetic enlightenment.
Online courses are great too for developing your design knowledge, David says. He recommends doing paid online courses by School of Motion , which provides some amazing basic courses for beginners seeking to learn after effects, illustrator, cinema, 4d, and several more. Other than the School of Motion, he also recommends Motion Design School and Mograph Mentor.
How to come up with Lottie animations?
Begin with devising a strategic game plan that questions who are you preparing your animation for, followed by its purpose, that is, why are you creating the animation in the first place, and what sort of mood do you want your animation to have, for instance, do you want to make it appear amusing, elegant, or quick-tempered.
Now, that you have built the foundations, proceed on with the technical aspects of the animation. That is, where do you plan to display the animation – is it going to be featured on a website or a mobile platform such iOS or android. Depending on the platform, you are going to adapt your method. For instance, if it’s on website, you are liberalt to make use of expressions, on the contrary, if the animation is for iOS, then the animation needs to be keyframed.
After you figure out all these aspects, proceeding with working on the animations
become fairly easy. If it’s too complicated, you may want to animate in stages, where you block out poses with hold keyframes and then add easing and other necessary details. On the other hand, if it’s a simple animation, you can simply create the desired motion.
Hope you have enough inspiration and guideline by now to get you started on your design journey.
