What does it take to be a Motion Graphics designer?
Time is a reasonably vague aspect that you need to have to be a good designer. You need time to learn, time to practice and time for things to go wrong and start again. Especially in motion graphics design. Things go wrong, and things need to be tweaked to make it look the best it possibly can. As well as the fact that time for rendering has to be taken into account. It isn’t as easy to make a video as it is a picture as you can’t just click ‘save’ and you have a video. Each frame and pixel must be rendered into an MP4 format.
Creativity
I think it goes without saying that to be a designer you must have an element of creativity. It is something that you must naturally have an eye for. The aesthetics side of being a motion graphics designer is what the people see mainly.
Software
The software is a significant part of being a motion graphics designer. The main pieces of software that come in handy when creating motion graphics are: After Effects, Illustrator, Photoshop and Cinema 4D.
Commitment
Committing to learning motion graphics is an essential part of developing your skills as a motion graphics designer.
To become a quality designer, you must be able to realise what you have done wrong rather than deleting everything and restarting. The ability to know why things have gone wrong comes through being committed to learning the trade.
Resilience
Similar to commitment, to be able to succeed in the motion graphics industry, you must be able to keep going and never give up on what you are doing. No matter how hard the job, there will be a way of doing it and instead of panicking, stay calm and figure out the best route for completing the task.
A Good Support System
Times will become hard as a designer, and there will be things that you will need help with as you aren’t perfect. Having a good support system of people who also know about motion graphics with similar skill sets comes in handy, as when you are having an inevitable and unavoidable ‘creativity block’ then someone is there to help you and guide you in the right direction. You also learn from other people who have skill sets different from yours.