Consistency and Routine for a Motion Designer

First week have passed, since I've decided to choose a specialization. I've decided to pay more attention to typography and learn basics from the beginning. I've read more about fonts, typography history, applied some examples in my runtime projects, bought couple books and accomplished two LinkedIn courses (provided for free, so kind, thx). I can summarize that my mood is stabilized after last months or even years. Instead of jumping to new motion graphics animation projects or next direction within a day and doing some tasks without a clear plan for motion graphic design career growth I've decided to stick just with one motion design topic for leaning. Noticeably everything started to align according to this my new main path. 

Clean-up garbage out from your mind

Usually when you learn something in a mixed manner you left some unfinished tasks, ideas left on semi-blank documents, many unread browser tabs that took your time, but still not provided anything helpful. And additionally, this type of learning clutters up your vision, and instead of thinking strictly and clearly – you have a "mixed" or even confused point of view. After several days it becomes the way, you behave in other aspects of life. 

Make a choice

Did you noticed how it's usually enough couple days during the vacation, when you feel already restful and ready for the work? The brain erases the main part of unfinished jobs from "operational" space. Forgets, organizes, switches on something another. Something similar I've noticed during this week. I just worked as usual, learned same amount of time and info, did regular routine tasks. But everything was applicable in a short amount of time, not delayed for the future. Learned, applied, received a satisfaction from accomplished tasks. Much less things left, which I didn't understood how to use. These things were creating a resistance of learning the “main specialization”- motion design. Because they've created nothing helpful, unfinished results. Nobody likes this, that's why it's hard to see the correct way for learning and growing in a wide subjects like design. Additionally in motion design jobs I see requirements like proficiency in design, animation, 3d, etc., etc. It's wide. Almost all recruiters want to find an ideal candidate. But they don't have to form the path of your career. To be competitive you have to know some topics on the expert level (if you wish to earn). When human have some limited amount of time, and if it's needed to cover all topics of requirements for each possible recruiter - it will be probably 1% of expertise of any particular topic. (Okay let it be 15%, doesn't matter - it's not 95-100% of expert's knowledge). How expertise is estimated? I don't have a clear explanation. But I guess it's a level of accomplished tasks, which is successfully, efficiently, optimized for a regular usage.  What you can do without problems, you have technologies in your arsenal, that just working great. More practical set of skills rather than wide-spread knowledge.

Why consistency matters

But it's obvious that you can't learn the typography for a half of the year in the beginning of your career.  You have to start doing many different tasks. Not just one title with a perfect tracking. I can use an example the wasp's nest when cells are built around the main Queens cell. They don't build cells in one line, but just adding “walls” between nearest two cells. It will be the best possible variant for saving the queen. So, in motion design we're doing relatively the same. When each cell is a skill, which helps us to survive, when it will be cold. But it should be built around some main activity, not in parallel or somehow else. Just wrapping around each time and supporting other previously learned skills and knowledge. What's important here is to build each cell firmly, so it will be possible to add more and more weight later on. So, before we've built one cell it's illogical to start building another one, even close to it. I did this mistake CONSTANTLY and as a result - having weak knowledge in each skill. Just many sub-finished cells.

Routine and Speed

The situation gets worst for a motion designer when there's appearing another application for animation or a new version of the current one. It's like a switching to another hive / nest. (Same for coders when they learn new languages, libraries, etc.). Designers are just using previously learnt fundamentals in this case. They’re applying skills of building one cell many times more frequently. Templates and saved elements are part of this building process. But separate building blocks aren’t helpful without the system and standards. Recently so many motion design jobs from top companies are having requirements of knowing motion design systems. The set of graphics patterns and design guidelines for unified production. It's efficiency. Less improvisation but instead more producing speed. I plan to learn more about it in the future. But at least currently can make a conclusion that it's important to build skills according to the fundamental knowledge, that will be used many times, in a repetitive way. Adding each time, the strength to your construction, setup. Consistency is key for this. It solves many problems that probably not intended to be, as we may guess. But in real life they're always here and there appearing somewhere.

Experience and Expertise

Consistency makes it possible to create more in an efficient way. Routine makes this process more constant and even. Sometimes you may hear that routine kills relationships or I'm “tired” of routine. Most of the time it feels like a negative word. But it's actually an activity that saving time and helping live a happy and more saturated, content life. Early start of repetition of some tasks usually grants early earnings, which is supporting and then developing this skill. It looks like a simple and obvious idea, but in a galaxy of tools for a motion design it’s really easy to forget what it’s the most important to learn and do. A lot of things can be important. But you have to learn something small on the expert level before you move to the next task. You will step to the next level because there will be no free space for. Not because you want to jump on to the next level. At some point you will build a strong foundation, that will be capable of standing under a heavy weight of motion graphics design jobs.

Ways to get there

Consistency and routine are working together like supercharging bonus for a space jet. You're creating many more marks and hooks in your memory, so it will be easier to remember something important, what is somehow connected to another similar element. Experience makes these neural chains stronger and more efficient. It saves time. The rest depends on you, on how you'll spend this time. What's better: one hour of creative exploration or 20-30 minutes of efficient routine work + half of an hour riding on your bike or running. But did you plan to take some physical activity, while your client is checking the work you've done? You just doing again your routine, if you've set this activity as a repetitive daily task. All equipment, outfit is prepared earlier and just waiting for you. Later you'll return and ready to continue the work on same task, consistently adding more. All depends on your personal preferences and lifestyle. But what's universal is 24 hours - 7 days a week. Every day is a restart of the process. And if you can't build your routine currently, you can try to plan your tasks to pack them sequentially. For example, one activity per day. ONE whole day you're working on one or learning one particular motion design subject. 

The main important thing is to remove this counter effective mood. The less you have a resistance the powerful you will have the result each time. But it's needed to narrow down your outlook for a short time. Later it will pay out completely with interest. Simplify and limit your choices, and you will have more options to learn later much more.

Here's a similar point of view on consistency and journaling by VFX artist and Film director Kaitlyn Yang

Join the discussion and leave a comment. I'm interested in learning more about you and your experience. Have a nice Motionday!