Beginners tips on how to improve in the Motion Graphics Industry
In this blog, I am going to be giving a few useful tips on how to improve your skills in motion graphics in similar ways that I did. As a designer with high qualifications, you do not need a degree or equivalent to start doing motion graphics design. If it is something you are interested in, then that is all you need to begin learning. It is free to learn a lot of the skills, however, the thing that you do have to pay for obviously is the equipment and software, you will need access to a fairly powerful computer and access to After Effects.
Focus on one thing at a time
A tip I would give to someone just beginning is to take your time and learn one skill at a time, spend about 2 weeks learning one skill alone and realistically by the end of the year you should have mastered 26 skills. It is important to not give up learning your new skills as they will become important during your bigger projects. Keep it interesting by learning your new skills around something you are actually interested in learning.
Create a schedule
This is an extremely good way of developing your skills and links with the above idea, set yourself 2 weeks to learn one skill and find some YouTube tutorials on this skills ranging from easy to advanced and make your way through them one by one and at the end you should have mastered how to use the skill in most scenarios.
Master the basics
It is crucially important to master the basics; these are the fundamentals to motion graphics, and they will be the things you use day in day out. Keyframing, scale, rotation and position are the basics that need mastering for every project you ever work on. Not everything you learn is complicated and you shouldn’t be messing around with the expensive plugins such as particular when the basics haven’t been mastered first.
Don’t neglect the design side
It is very important to never neglect the design of a piece before it even begins. No matter how hard you work on a project and how cool and how much time you have spent on the animation if the design doesn’t look good from the start then I can guarantee that it will not look good at the end either. It kind of links with not neglecting the basics and the design is obviously the basic element of every video you make.
Keep it interesting
At the end of the day to learn and progress in motion graphics it is important to make it interesting. If the subject matter isn’t interesting to you then you won’t enjoy doing it and will more than likely give up before you have finished the project, so ensure that whatever you begin working on is relatable to you and it is something you are going to enjoy creating.