MOTION GRAPHICS Stash Media Inc
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MOTION GRAPHICS STASH MEDIA INC. Editor: Stephen Price Publisher: Greg roBins Associate editor: HEATHER GRIEVE Associate publisher: CHRISTINE STEAD Account managers: STACY JAMES FRY, APRIL HARVEY Producer: BRANDON DEMARCO Submissions coordinator: ABBEY KERR Music editor: STEVE MARCHESE Proofing editor: MARILEE BOITSON Preview director/producer: STACY JAMES FRY Preview editor: JEAN-DENIS ROUETTE Montage editor: JEFF ZEMETIS Contributing producer: ERIC ALBA Technical guidance: IAN HASKIN MOTION Get your inspiration delivered monthly. Every issue of Stash DVD magazine GRAPHICS is packed with outstanding animation and VFX for design and advertising. Subscribe now: WWW.STASHMEDIA.TV ISSN 1712-5928 Subscrptions: www.stashmedia.tv. Submissions: www.stashmedia.tv/submit. Contact: Stash Media Inc. 484-1641 Lonsdale Avenue, North Vancouver, BC V7M 2J5 Canada Legal things: Stash Magazine and Stash DVD are published 12 times per year by Stash Media Inc. All rights reserved and contents copyright Stash Media Inc. No part of this booklet nor the Stash DVD may be copied without express written permission from the publisher. Curated in New York, printed in Canada. The fractured media audience is a central reason network television and major record labels do not dominate their industries as they used to. In the good old days the audience was generally cohesive and reasonably obedient – they would consume large quantities of whatever was shoved in front of them because there were few alternatives. Back in 2004 we were convinced Stash was the way to serve a small shard of that shattered mob (the design and advertising crowd) exactly what they wanted and were never going to get from a big media company: a publication devoted exclusively to animation, VFX and motion graphics. But even as the first couple issues rolled out that fall, we began to get requests for even more specialized collections. Some designers wanted to see more broadcast graphics, many animators were only interested in character animation. Others wanted to see disks full of music videos or short films. It was very clear Stash’s small (but tasty) piece of the media pie should be sliced up to serve even more focused audiences. In the summer of 2007, when we finally got serious about a series of Stash collections, one of the first titles I knew we had to release was Motion Graphics. In part because the audience is large and fairly rabid, but also because the choice of a guest editor was so obvious. 98% of you know Justin Cone through his Motionographer site. Anyone who has met him knows he is warm, articulate, passionate, and yes… I’ll say it: kind of cute. This is Justin’s collection. He chose all 60 pieces and requested they run as you see them – in chronological order from Stash 01. His introduction to this volume – answering the thorny question of just what motion graphics actually is – runs on the next two pages. Stephen Price Editor New York, February 2008 [email protected] I have yet to hear a satisfac- wave off the term by simply stating Apart from an tory definition of motion graphics. that graphic design is the use of occasional post- Almost every professional who’s images and text to communicate occasional post- come into contact with motion information. sneeze blessing, graphics has some idea about it, which they profess with vary- Unfortunately, this definition makes I don’t speak ing degrees of confidence and the graphic designer sound like swagger depending on their age, little more than a professional German. experience and job titles. collage artist. (Not that there’s anything wrong with professional It’s not something I actively avoid; The most common definition is collage artists.) It doesn’t get at the it’s just not something my life’s that motion graphics is the com- enormous complexity of book lay- circumstances have encouraged bination of animation and graphic out or the murky gray areas where me to learn, like ice-fishing or design. This answer is usu- illustration and typography mingle. alligator wrestling. But there’s an ally delivered with an air of barely It doesn’t say anything about the oft-cited word from the German restrained self-satisfaction punctu- importance of color theory or hint language that I celebrate, partly for ated by a sense of unquestionable at the countless layers of meaning its meaning but mostly for the fact finality. There. Done. That’s it. that any part-time semiotician can that it can’t easily be defined—in Period. Check, please. derive from the seemingly simple German or in English. shapes of a logo or typeface. But the answer, unfortunately, is The word is gemütlichkeit. It woefully deficient for two reasons: Taking a cue from semiotics, means (roughly) the quality of One, it merely points to two other maybe graphic design could be coziness, the feeling of being terms, the definitions of which are defined as the creation of signs, accepted, comfortable, cheerful, only slightly less opaque than mo- in the semiotical sense of that at ease with the world, present in tion graphics. And two, “graphic word. But then that’s too broad, the here and now. A person can be design plus animation” doesn’t too encompassing. It waters down gemütlichkeit, but so can a situa- capture the whole sprawling mess the discipline, putting my Uncle tion or a place. Gemütlichkeit can’t of disciplines around which motion Herbert’s bungled PowerPoint pre- be readily defined, but the people graphics encircles its loving arms. sentations on the same conceptual who know what it means can point footing as Paul Rand’s portfolio. Like “gemütlichkeit” and “motion to several examples of gemütlich- Perhaps that glaring inequality can graphics,” “graphic design” and keit things and confidently pro- best be summed up in two words: “animation” are slippery critters claim their gemütlichkeitfulness, all Comic Sans. while being perfectly gemütlichkeit that don’t appreciate being themselves. You know it when you fondled with semantic certitude. see it, in other words. Let’s tackle the graphic design angle first. Employing the same Kind of like motion graphics. smugness and finality as our hy- pothetical speaker above, I could Instead of wrestling endlessly with each other’s reproductive organs Viewed from a slightly different But as I started sifting through all what graphic design is or isn’t, let’s and produce a child. If we unravel angle, motion graphics isn’t virally the beautiful work, I relaxed and agree that it resists clear defini- that child’s DNA and decode it, injecting itself into existing disci- started to enjoy the process. The tion. Let’s agree that we generally we get something like, “the com- plines; rather it is a term that can motion graphics pieces spoke to know graphic design when we see munication of information via the be widely and liberally applied to me. I reached in and plucked them it, and that, in fact, it’s probably sequencing of images and text.” the changes going on in the fields out. I’m not saying it was easy. It better to not put too fine a point of design, animation and film- wasn’t. But it was a blast. Not bad, actually. But that’s the on it, lest we miss something new making. The difference is largely barest of definitions for a field that and exciting burgeoning on the semantic, but it does underscore The result is the closest I’ve ever refuses to be defined. Motion periphery. the elasticity of motion graphics seen to a definitive collection of graphics encompasses a huge as a concept. Motion graphics, in contemporary motion graphics The same goes for animation. The range of disciplines with the other words, may be less about work. If all my ramblings above easy definition: animation is the voracity of a starved amoeba. An its products and more about an made no sense, any confusion will sequencing of imagery to produce incomplete laundry list includes attitude, an approach that can only be obliterated by simply watching the illusion of motion. And now I’m (in addition to graphic design and be defined as “motion graphicky.” the contents of these two DVDs. sighing at what I just wrote. (I’m animation): sound design, visual A spot comprised entirely of 3D sure many of you are doing much effects, cinematography, editing, animation, for example, could be worse.) While technically true, ani- music composition and even inter- What is motion a specimen of motion graphics if it mation is a full-blown art form unto action design and installation art. was held together by design. Art- itself, encompassing everything graphics? fully edited live action mixed with from clay model stop-motion to Viewed one way, motion graph- a modicum of aesthetic sensibility This is motion photorealistic computer generated ics is infiltrating existing fields. could also slide under the welcom- imagery. But in an attempt to Everything that was once static is ing umbrella of motion graphics. graphics. include all the countless variations now subject to movement—and thus to motion graphics. A couple of animation, we must reach for It’s with all this mess in mind that I May it prove to be as gemütlichkeit of years ago, the countless posters a nebulous definition to provide chose the contents of these DVDs. for you as it is for me. that lined Tottenham Court Road some sort of foundation, however The assignment was, at first, ter- Station’s longest escalator were shaky and prone to cracking it rifying. I’ve been a Stash fan for a replaced by as many LCD displays, might be. while. Every month, I sit in front of Justin Cone each playing a motion graphics- my TV with a rag in one hand to Editor, Motionographer Again, we’ve got a slippery one on fueled video loop.