Top investments for a motion designer

Igor Demenko -

Human vs AI

Motion Design Business term looks awkward. It's just "basically an animation", average persons reacting like that. But as a part of design services, it can become a dominating skill required for a top level content creation. As video content is continuing to grow everywhere, especially with AI generative tools, soon it will be oversaturated with poor organized materials and garbage messages, even if they will be looking interesting from artistical side.

As a motion designer you're typically working with the final product of the whole team of copywriters, designers, illustrators, art and creative directors collecting assets and syntesizing them into nice looking creative. Many projects are already shaped, having clear requirements and goals. It's just needed to do the dirty job and skip the creativity and other self-activity. But even in these cases, it's important to see and understand the whole plan of the project. Doing some animation, naming the units randomly, using accent colors not in proper amounts or fonts in slightly different variations using different animation speeds makes brand look and feel totally different. Imagine all such details in AI prompts. It's needed a human eye for doing this final setup, at least at this moment and next few years is for sure. We can use some AI workarounds for making a generic ads in high amounts. In this case the speed is a King. But making the final "pattern" will require the touch of an experienced graphic designer. This finally leads to the point of this post, which investments are most efficient for a motion designer. 

What to focus on

First, is the skill and knowledge. By learning how to make projects and actually doing them, will be defined the speed and value of your accomplished work. Investing in educational materials is about 80% percents of efficiency and success. It doesn't need to be something expensive but should be systematic. The idea of ​​learning and making it the main goal changes everything at a drastic speed. The main mistake here is to set high expectations and learn too wide. I've found that normal level of support for my learning is happening when I accomplish something small, but every day. So before I start with learning something, I split a big task for a month and do something small no matter the day will be. It usually takes 5-25 minutes of intensive excercise, but after that I'm almost  always taking a break for 40 minutes - hour. I'm adjusting all other work to be partially or completely finished before this excercise. Doing it and then receiving a total relax and happines by accomplishing it and "replaying" in the memory a new experience during the break. So, I'm trying to buy something helpful for learning. Building a comfortable workplace, like adjustable table, chair, basic school things like comfortable pencil, ruler, lamps, stands, comfortable mouse and keyboard 
anything to organize my room and optimize the work/study process for pleasure.

Why it matters

Many can say a motion designer firstly have to invest in a powerful computer. Of course, if you have enough budget, not a problem. But for any serious project you have to know the process. And a low-end gaming computer is usually enough to handle the computationally demanding routine motion design work. 

The scariest part is unknowing the process. If you flown away into the loop of the experimentation, any powerful computer won't help you meet the deadline. Imagine that the motion design project is an exam where you plan to show everything you've already learned well, and the goal is to get an easy A. You're happy, teachers (clients) are happy. Everything is perfect. But when you're buying a tough computer and trying to do 3d Rendering work on it, and doing something tough things from tutorials, and later acquiring some freelance project, where is needed the overal understanding to pack the video, organize it, do some basic design work, and you don't know how to do this properly. And you're stepping back to just 3d work or some video editing to utilize the power of your computer. But the level of your motion design skills remains the same for a long time without the feeling of the growth. Which is demoralising.

Protect yourself first

It's important build a small sphere for your world where you'll be comfortable with what you're doing. It can be anything that helping you feel happy and satisfied with an everyday routine. But at least half of this world should be supporting your "design vision" and skills in some way. After building a strong design foundation (which is quickly rewarding) you'll have a possibility to develop a competitive motion design skill.

Here's my list of valuable investments :)

  1. YouTube premium subscription. There's too much of ads nowadays. Learning with interruptions is something that kills the process completely for me. Moreover you can see something tuned just for you, so it will be a high chance to spend much more than you will be paying for a monthly subscription.
  2. Workshops and courses. It can be simple short courses, but if you feel that it's a unique chance for masteing some tricks in your current high priority interest. Not overall knowledge for learning basics. Usually there's nobody knowing about such courses, but you're absolutely sure that's something really tough.
  3. Books. Specified for your current interest and skills improvement. Don't start learning new skills, if you're thinking it will be useful for earning more. Improve what you're using for actual earnings and slightly shift the focus.
  4. Working space. Table with a variable height to switch from sitting to the standing position. Unload your spine and wrists. Palm/wrist support for a keyboard. Some sites are writing that it doesn't help. But always try for yourself everything. For me it's working. Stands for monitors and tablets. Other things for a comfortability. They can be small things like a photocard holder, but if you think they can help you feel better, use them.
  5. Notepads. A comfortable pencil and several notepads can stabilize your shaky motion ocean of thoughts. Yeah, good things are born here very often.
  6. Small Whiteboard. Keeping my important 2-3 daily goals always visible.
  7. Foot warmer. I'm always having cold palms and feet, which is affecting my normal life. It's better to feel comfortable and work without distractions.

Let me know about your list of investments!

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