Final Evaluation

This project was called the Final Major Project, and was the project at the end of the course to pick any area of design you liked and to create the best work you have ever created. I picked motion design for idents, as I had no experience in it and thought it was a good choice for a final project.

When I began my FMP, I wanted to create a TV ident for a channel. I wanted to create something like Channel Five’s idents, as I thought they were interesting and fun to watch. I never realised just how important idents were, and always took them for granted. In this project I learnt just how important they are and how much they can impact your channel. In the beginning I didn’t think I would create my own channel, and was planning on creating an ident for a channel such as Channel 5 or ComedyCentral. This changed halfway in, when I realised my work would be of a higher standard if I went out of my way to create a channel. Other than the channel creation my goal from the beginning to end has remained the same.

In this FMP, time was the biggest restraint, as there was too little time for too much work. I needed to create videos using very complicated software and simply didn’t have enough time to get everything done at once. This led me to the decision that I would begin creating videos and animations right from the start, as it would give me time to reflect on my creations and to improve over time. I chose to create research afterwards, since my goal and the thing I wanted to create was in sight right from the start. Research helped me understand idents and helped push my work to a higher level, which is why I was in another creation stage at the end of the research. Research is done in almost every project, but learning new programs are not. This is why I took it upon myself to manage my time efficiently. Cost was another constraint, as I could have created better animations by purchasing scripts and effect packs, or make my work look better by buying certain fonts. Another constraint was buying prints. An A1 print cost £8, so two of them would be £16. I then had 4 A2 prints, so that would rack up to £32 altogether. Certain websites also cost money to use, such as website builders and similar sites.

My target audience is mainly Aspirers, as a lot of teenagers and adults are aspirers, and are interested in the modern style of my work. Today’s style varies a lot, and contains all kinds of art, be it old or new. This is why retro art and old things are so popular nowadays, as people like to be reminded of the past.  This ties in with my glitch art, as some parts of it can be linked to the past. For instance, films like War Games featured computer animation and I like thinking that my work was influenced from old movies such as this.

Aspirers are usually into action films, and huge flashy sequences. They are usually into the main trending movies and TV shows at the current time, and since the current trend is a very urban lifestyle and is leaning towards futuristic urban style, my glitch effect fits in very well with this. Movies such as Chappie or Wall E or films set in the future but where everything is broken are usually followed by many glitchy animations. This is why I think my design will fit in well with the current trend. I asked many people about what their honest opinion of my work was, and many of them agreed with me that it did look like it was futuristic and looked broken, which is exactly the effect I was going for. I also incorporated smooth animation as well as the lagging glitch effect, just in case people wanted to see good examples of normal smooth TV idents.

The research I did on idents went as far as the early 2000’s, as I researched channels such as the BBC and Channel 4. The older videos did not really influence my decisions, as they were quite outdated. A lot of the channels I researched used footage in their idents, and rarely used motion graphics. I had my goal in sight before the research, so the channels that I looked at were helpful and provided some insight into idents as a subject, but did not really help me focus on a particular idea.

For this project I learnt so many skills that it would be almost impossible to write them all down here. I don’t want to sound like I’m bragging, but I learnt the basics of After Effects within a matter of months.  I myself don’t see this as much of an achievement, but I see the creations I have made over the span of a short time as achievements. After Effects was a very big part of this project, as it essentially fuelled the project for me, and would have been impossible without it. For example, I learnt the very basics of how properties are changed to create movement or animation, which is simply keyframes. A keyframe would be used when you want to change something, so I will use an example. If I want to change the position of something, I would put a keyframe when the shape was in its original place, scrub down the timeline to when I wanted it at the end point, then move the shape to where I wanted it. I would then set another keyframe there. If I then watched the animation, I would see the shape move from one place to another. This is one of the most basic forms of animation on after effects and I am glad and proud that I progressed so fast and well through it. I also learnt to use charts within After Effects, such as the graph editor to make animations less boring and make them ease into their desired movement or positions. I also learnt how to manage my time better, as rendering would take a very long time depending on the animation, so this meant I would have to do any work I desperately needed to do before rendering so when I began rendering I would not have anything left to do on the computer, thus making it render as fast as possible. Overall, I went out of my comfort zone in this project and decided to learn an entirely new program, which will hopefully lead to many opportunities.

Because I created the majority of my work on a computer and didn’t have any hands-on work, my only health and safety considerations would be looking at a screen too long. I had to take long breaks from doing work due to my eyes being exposed to too much artificial bright lighting, which also caused me headaches at times. Another health and safety risk is my computer. My computer can get very hot if on for a long time, so I had to make sure my room was kept cool and I had to render when I switched on my computer rather than 4 or 5 hours later. Another health and safety risk is chair posture, which also led me to taking long breaks where I wasn’t sitting down on a chair. Hands can get tired if kept on a mouse or if you keep typing. This was also one of the many reasons I had to take breaks from work.

I think my work is of a high standard, and all my final videos have come out the way I want to. The software I used is also used by many production companies, as it has so many possibilities. My work is quite strong in sending a message and explains what it is just in a 4 second video. Another strength I have is that all the movement in my work is smooth and nothing is tacky or looks like it was made on lower amateur software. The actual quality of my work is very high, and was rendered in 60 frames a second, which means incredibly smooth animation and professional standard work. I think my work is also fit for its purpose, as the purpose was to create an eye-catching animation for an ident. One of the weaknesses is that there is no music in the videos, which make them almost boring without any atmosphere. The middle animation with the glitch effect has glitch sound effects to aid the video, but there isn’t any actual music.

As time was a constraint, I was not able to put music into my work. However if I had the chance to do this project again, I would make the music my priority, as this is what pulls your eye to the screen if you are not facing it. I would not change the way it looks and would only change the sound, as this would be a major improvement. I would even consider creating another animation, as I would only be gaining something if I created another animation.

I assessed my own progress as I went along with the project and decided what looked good with what. Of course, assessing your own work isn’t as good as a second opinion, which is why when the group crit took place I was given some suggestions for animations, such as a request to make them more urban. I wouldn’t say I fully completed this request, as I am sure they were also talking about a lot more footage, but I took what they said and acted upon it, making the group crit a success. I also received a lot of feedback from my tutors, and used this as constructive criticism. I also put my work next to others I had found on the internet, which then gave me more ideas and in turn led me to new things.

The FMP for me was all about motion design. Everyone in the class that I talked to had never used After Effects, and had never been taught it. We weren’t being taught how to use the program in class either, so I took it completely on myself to learn how to use the program. I also chose the channels by myself by looking at the channels I see most often, as then I would have a better chance of talking about more, which would lead to more information. To be perfectly candid, a lot of this project was more about me experimenting with what I thought about in After Effects. A lot of it was also very independent, as I created the animations by myself and created most of the logos by myself. I asked my tutors for a few things and had a lot of support but created everything purely by myself, with no inside help. Overall, I think I did a good job with this project and pushed myself further than any other project.

I liked this project, not because I was able to pick anything I wanted to, but because I chose something I had no idea how to create. It was also the end of the course, which meant I wanted to give it my all, to finish off the course with the best work I had ever produced. The work I created for this FMP is what I think, my best work. 

Final Reel

This is the final reel and is one video consisting of three different idents. There is not much to say seeing as I have already spoken about my idents in depth. One thing I changed in the reel was the way the videos were put together. I created transitions for each of the videos to go next to each the so it would look more professional and have more of a flow. It wasn’t hard work putting the videos together; the real hard work was creating transitions for them. The hardest one was the first, as all I had was stock footage. I used a displacement map in an adjustment layer and set the displacement to the stock footage, which was then seen like this. I changed the colours and toggled some settings and eventually got it to look like that. The transition right at the end was created first, since it was very easy and I have done that kind of sequenced layers animation before. The reason I put a transition at the end was so that if put on a loop, it would keep the flow and rhythm and not cut and start, which would be unprofessional.  The second transition uses a TV warp effect and this was moderately easy after watching a tutorial and understanding how it works.  In terms of the actual videos, I am proud of my work and what I have accomplished in a small amount of time. 

Final Idents

This post will be going through the idents I did use and the ones that were good enough as idents. They all contain the final logo and are the highest quality of my work in motion design. 

This animation is a very quick, 4 second video clip and does a good job of being simple. There isn’t any complex movement or a number of shapes moving, but rather, a very simple and minimalistic ident. When you begin the ident you see a red line in the centre, stretching horizontally. It then covers the entire screen in a very fluid and smooth fashion. As soon as it does this, the word Flux comes in, with the two circles on its sides. The side parts of the letters that came exclusively to this font slide in very subtly and is a good way of keeping the word on screen without wasting time. It slides in from nowhere, which was done using a mask. After precomposing the text and the entire flux layer, I made a mask for it and put it in the centre of the screen. That way, when it moves upwards, it cannot be seen anymore. The movement also eases in, and is not too fast or too slow. Once the animation is done, the logo moves down, which means leaving the mask, which means it will not be visible any longer. As soon as the logo disappears, the red screen flattens horizontally and becomes extremely then as it goes away, not unlike an old television. The red screen going away was not because of the flow, but more because it creates the loop effect. If the beginning and end screen have the same look, a loop can be made without any stuttering and can be a fluid motion. 

This video has a lot more than just motion design, and contains video to support it. It is 8 seconds long and features glitch motion design. Some background information about the video is that it was filmed in the Afflecks Palace’s Café, from the window. I filmed 5 minutes worth of footage, mostly people walking and cars driving, and I sped all this up into around 15 seconds of footage. I then added a black and white effect onto the footage, as most time lapses in city environments look best in black and white. When the video begins, you get a second of just watching the footage and looking at the area. The letters and shapes then begin to pop up and all of a sudden there are letters everywhere and is impossible to concentrate on a single shape without it disappearing a split second later. While this is going on, the colours are inverting, from red squares to dark blue squares, from yellow text to light blue text. This really gives the video a professional touch, as it makes it more complex which in turn seems harder to reproduce, therefore looks professional. At around 4/5 seconds into the video, the logo comes together very quickly. It inverts colours a few more times and changes position and scale before each line of the logo disappears while inverting. I think this video was a good use of the footage and used the logo perfectly.  

This ident is probably the best one I have created, in my opinion, as I think the computer glitches are very computer-like and look very real. It reminds me of the effect movie producers use when they want something digital to look old or broken. The video begins with the logo instantly glitching out, moving around and not being able to be stable. In the first second, the logo has huge changes, and moves around a lot. Then you can tell it is trying to be stable but occasionally has random glitches happening at any time. I also like the RGB splitting effect, as you can see this as the video continues, the green and red visible against the black background. Another thing you can notice from this ident is the sound. In all my previous idents I was not able to find a suitable audio file, such as music or special effects, due to many different constraints, but with this ident I simply needed to find a glitch sound, so I found a free glitch sound online, cut it into pieces and synced it up to the separate glitches on the video. On some screens you cannot tell, but if you look a little closer at the video you can see that there is a dirty texture as the background and is not actually your screen. One of the greatest things about this video is the fact that I did not edit it frame by frame, and rather let a displacement map and an extra piece of stock glitch footage do a lot of the work for me, as that is what is causing the effect. This means that, because it is in 60 frames per second, you could land on a frame out of pure chance and look at something incredible. 

Flux Ident Development

Creating animations was parallel to creating logos, as I was doing both at the same time. On this section you will see all the videos and idents I made that were concentrating purely on logos. 

This is the first animation I created, as I really wanted to start animating and begin production of the idents. This was the first logo I created and decided I would make an animation see how it came out. Before this video, I had created much shorter videos of the last animation, where the black circle would pop in and the word flux would come in the same way after the reflections came in. I decided it was too short and was not exciting. This is when this video was created, as I completely recreated the style of the video. It begins with a typing animation of the word flux in upper case, in a sans-serif typeface. I then made it look like the word was being deleted by getting rid of each letter as if someone was hitting the backspace key. It then rewrites the word flux in lowercase, and then deletes it all over again. It is then written in a handwritten calligraphy font, but this time is not deleted. Instead, three slides of rows of triangles slide in, one after another, and the red and black one is last. The word flux moves into the centre of the image, and this is when the black circle scales in from the centre. When it has fully scaled up, you cans see a feathered out drop shadow behind it, which makes the animation look more professional. The reflections then slide in, one from the top right, the other from the bottom left. A second later the word flux changes from green to white. The background of red and black triangles fades out very quickly and the logo scales down a small bit and moves up to the top of the screen. It feels like it is getting further away when it does this, which almost makes it 3D. The logo then flies down to the bottom of the screen, where it goes off screen and the animation finishes. One thing I realised about motion design and animation is that everything needs to moving and in sync while there are still things going on, which I found out after this animation. This is the reason why this animation is quite slow and makes you wait for objects to appear. As I know I can do better than this, I realise this did not look professional and complicated, which is usually what makes an animation good.

This ident was created based on my hipster-styled logo, and mainly focuses on the coming-together of the logo. It begins with the dark blue circle scaling in very quickly from the centre, followed by the circle with the lighter shade of blue. Instantly a line sweeps through the logo from the top right, and while this is happening a huge circle that is transparent scales in from the centre and covers the screen, then finishes very quickly. While all of this was going on, the white ring around the light blue circle appears without you even noticing. When the large transparent circle comes in, you begin to see a blur moving around in the circle, and is spinning. When it slows down, you realise it was the starts around the edge of the circle. This is also when the black lines pop in from the side quite suddenly and spin 360 degrees before stopping and coming out of the circle. While that is happening, a black line appears in the circle, which is followed by the word flux coming out of it. Everything is stationary for at least a second before the black lines rotate 360 degrees anti-clockwise and go back into the circle. A black line that is similar to the one that held the word flux appears beneath the logo, which then goes into it and is followed by the line closing. The entire animation is very quick and you can see very quickly that it looks very professional and a lot different from the last one. There is also a very slight shadow behind the logo that many people do not see on the first time. This is also a video that can be played on a loop and still has a perfect rhythm. 

This video is 3 seconds long and contains an animation showing my final logo. It begins by the red background of the logo and the actual text sliding in from opposite directions, and as soon as they do this, the colours are inverted. To do this I created a mask and inverted the colour, which means that anything in that mask has been inverted. The left side is the original colour while the colour on the right has been inverted and is now dark blue on turquoise. The shadow like feature on the text slides in on each letter, and this was also done by changing the path over time. When this is done, the small circles on either side of the logo pop in, and are both in completely different colours. The masks then change places on either side, making the left half blue and the right side red. There is then a mask from underneath, and this goes from the bottom left to the top right. It makes the text a really light blue on a nice shade of sky blue, which means the red and dark blue colours go away for a split second. The mask then wipes away, revealing the red and dark blue backgrounds again. Another mask then swipes up from the bottom to show a slightly darker blue than the background behind the text, which is the same colour as the background. It then wipes down, which essentially just takes the logo down for the rest of the video. The video ends right here so it is possible to play this video on a loop with a good flow. It is a very bright and eye-catching animation but doesn’t really have anything apart from that to go on, which makes it look amateurish. Overall it is bright and cheerful, but doesn’t look as professional as the last. 

Final Logo Annotation

After consulting my tutors and peers about this situation and showing them all my logos, the banner one came out the strongest design of all, and I took this very well and immediately began creating what would be my final logo. This is the finished product, and is very simple. The original one had extra lines and had the whole shadow thing going on, whereas this one cut all of that off and works fine on its own. The same colour scheme that was used on one of the banners was copied and put in here. This design works well and has enough contrast to make your head turn, as the font is different and is hard to find, and the circles make it less harsh on your eyes. There is not much to say about the final logo as I wrote most of it on the development section, and because the logo just works. There is no reason behind this other than good design choices, and trial and error when creating logos. 

Channel Identity Logo Development

After researching idents for channels, I realised I would have to create a channel to produce some idents. I chose the word 'flux' as it was a word I really liked and is not really used that often in the world today. It is also used in the phrase 'state of flux' meaning it is constantly changing. If my channel were a real one, it would be keeping up with all the recent and modern trends, increasing popularity and viewers. 

This is the first logo I created and was a very quick and immediate response to the creation of a logo.  This was created straight after I realized I would have to create a channel, which meant designing and developing a logo. I wanted it to be very simple and initially be within a circle, as I really liked the look of most logos in circles. I then did the first thing I thought of, and created a circle with some reflections inside it. I wanted a handwritten font purely because it makes the logo look more. My colour scheme was very simple as I went with black and white to keep a minimalistic feel. I added reflections on either side to make the logo look glossy and shiny. Overall it was a very basic logo and had no real meaning, as well as the fact that because it had no colour it would not stand out compared to a coloured logo.

This logo was more intended to be a clipping mask for an image, but did not look professional and there was no easy way to do this. I then scrapped the clipping mask idea and made a very simple logo with the use of some lines. It was created by adding the word, changing its colour to red and pasting 4 lines behind it. I personally do not like this logo, as I think the font is not really suitable and the colour is too saturated. It is also too simple and shows no real talent or skill. It took me a while to make it look better, to no result, but it would have been a waste if I did not include it in the list of logos I created, as it shows development.

This image is a screenshot containing all the logos I created using this technique, which was also one of my first initial ideas. The logo in the centre was the logo that was created first, and was simply a shape I created using what I believe was the pen tool. I instantly liked this shape, and thought it was different enough to catch your eye without being too quirky or strange. I then copied the shape, turned off the stroke and made its fill colour white. I then put this behind and a little lower underneath the original image before duplicating the white filled shape and changing the colour to black, which is when I put this underneath the white shape. I then, coincidentally, found a font with this same effect and put it on the group of shapes. It may have even been a subconscious decision, as I remember looking at this font a few days before creating this design, only to remember it after it was created. I then rotated the text to suit the shape better and decided to leave it alone, as it looked best like this. I then made a completely neutral version of this by creating nothing but a square and adding the text normally, which did not require any special tools or techniques. I then duplicated this twice, using the shear tool to get different angles on the shape and text, which replicated the style of the first logo automatically. I like these slanted ones, as I think they look like stickers or banners, which are almost always spotted in design. The second one I duplicated was facing the left, and I was particularly keen on this one, so I duplicated this one and changed the colours to my liking. I am a very big fan of red and orange as backgrounds, as I feel they stand out the most. I found a very light red and used this for the background of the logo, whereas the text was yellow. I wanted to find suitable colours that would contrast well against each other. It took me a while to find the perfect yellow but I am happy with this shade, as it is the best shade that keeps its brightness without being unreadable or tacky. Overall, I think these logos were better than the last and show some actual development within the document. 

This was created after I wanted to try and create some sort of app for a logo. I noticed they usually have rounded edges and are very simple. I thought it would be a clever idea to try and incorporate some modern art styles into a TV channel, which is why I brought in a design like this. It was created by first created a rounded rectangle and creating a fake shadow effect, which was created by copying the object, pasting it, copying it, pasting it and then using a function from the Pathfinder toolbar. The reason you need to copy and paste it twice is to keep the original shape when the second one becomes altered. I then changed the colour to a darker one, creating the fake shadow effect. I then drew two lines and rotated them 45 degrees each to opposite directions, to create an X. I then copied this X and pasted it underneath, changing the colour to black and making it look like a shadow. I don’t particularly like this one, as it makes no sense and doesn’t really explain anything about the channel, and doesn’t even show the name of the channel. I like the simplicity of it, and how it has subtle shadows, but it is not strong enough to make into a full-time logo. 

This logo was created with the idea of being simple and minimalistic yet effective. I thought the best colours to use were black and white, as they are the simplest colours that exist. With this thought, I created a black rectangle and placed white text over it. I then created outlines for the text and the two circles on the side, meaning they were no longer text objects and now shape layers.  I then copied and pasted all the white layers on top of each other twice, then used the last two to create the shadow effect. It now looks as if it is a black piece of paper with the text cut out of it. As it is supposed to be simple, I chose a very simple, sans-serif typeface and did not add any extra, unnecessary detail. 

This logo was made in the spur of the moment and did not have any thought process behind it. Despite this, I quite like this logo, as the black and yellow contrast well and fit together. I created a long hexagon, made it yellow and replicated the fake shadow effect using the Pathfinder toolbar. I think any other font would have looked boring and dull, but since this one has the shadow repeat effect, it works just fine. I centered it and left it like it is, since there is not much else to do with it. The reason behind the hexagon shape was because I wanted to experiment with all kinds, as this was the point where I had finished making the app logo look, which was a rounded rectangle. I figured if I created and changed enough shapes I would get the perfect one for a logo. I can see why this one is not that strong; it has no real opportunity neither does it have the best detail either. 

This was an idea I had where I would show the viewer what devices they could watch my channel on, and I spent a lot of time creating the little details found in the objects. I created an X which was filled with orange and had a black stroke, to increase the flow of your eyes and not to confuse anything. I first began on the TV, and made it retro, since that is the going style of today, and put a reflection over it, to make it look less boring and to make it seem more complicated. I made it a little cartoon-like by adding the two lines at the top, mostly seen in cartoon designs of old TV’s. I then began creating the phone, in which I created a very modern phone, and spent a long time putting too much detail into it. For instance, the front facing camera has many small circles and slight variations of colour to make it look realistic, and because it is a vector image it does not pixelate or blur. I then looked at my own phone and began recreating my wallpaper. I didn’t detail the mountains or any of the wallpaper greatly as it would have taken a very long time to perfect it. I then created a monitor, which is quite boring and dull compared to the others. This is because as I went on creating these, I lost focus in what I was trying to achieve, meaning that it was getting harder and harder to finish this illustration process. I then stopped illustrating this piece of work and began to work on other logo’s that were perhaps more simple and elegant rather than these detailed illustrations.

I created this because I realized I had no actual simple designs, and were all detailed in some way or another, such as shadows or reflections. With this I simply created a circle, removed its side, and put some text over it to make it look like it was inside the circle. I did this with two different fonts to make sure it could have been interpreted different ways, not just the bold text. I chose the green because I thought this would be a good use of colour but isn’t too bright to the eyes. It also goes well with the white background and the black text. I also made the green circle line thin because it would look tacky and unprofessional if it was any thicker and would not be able to be seen if it was any thinner. Overall, two very simple logos with a lot of white space for minimalism. 

This was one of my first creations, but I saved it until last to talk about because it was my favourite design and I thought it was my strongest one. I wanted to create a ‘hipster’ look, as these are almost everywhere today. I began with a circle, as I wanted a design to be within a circle, as it would catch your attention faster than with a normal square. I then made this circle a dark blue, then duplicated it and made it smaller, and made this white. I then duplicated it one more time, which was then made light blue. I made the dark blue circle thicker so the white wouldn’t have the same width, and noticed it made the logo better. I then added stars, in which there was a very complicated technique in which I made a circle, made this into a path for stars and then made the path of stars even throughout the circle. I then added the word flux with the same handwritten font I have been using for a lot of these logos, and put this in white, because any other colour would have made the colour scheme too complicated. I then finished it off putting two lines through it, then using the pathfinder toolbar to get rid of the covering section, which cut the covering pieces off. I then made them bigger and the effect was perfect, as they are almost like arrows pointing towards the actual logo. Overall a simple yet effective design and has a somewhat bright colour scheme. 

An Introduction to Motion Graphics

Motion design was not completely new to me, as I had played around with it a few years prior to this course. I didn’t understand much of it then, and was all very daunting to me, as After Effects was one of them programs made by Adobe that had a million settings and didn’t make an ounce of sense to you as a beginner. I decided to jump straight into the world of motion graphics, doing this before any other area in my FMP.

As anyone does in the 21^st century, I decided to Google “an intro to Motion Graphics”. I found a beginner friendly video explaining all the little settings and buttons and how to combine the use of things to make your work stand out. I continued to create short little animations by following tutorials, and I soon gained an insight into the very basics of After Effects. 

This motion graphic was created when I was watching a tutorial on the very basics of motion design. It was very helpful and consistent, and this was the end product. I was still a complete beginner, and had little experience with properties of shapes as seen in this video prior to this. The video is very short and quick, but if put on a loop looks like it is going on forever. The video begins with the white circle jumping down onto the blue screen and bouncing upwards. As it does this, a number of rounded rectangles appear and explode around the circle, but not before a mask comes out of the circle and covers the screen, inverting the colours. This only lasts a few seconds to the animation, but makes it seem much more complicated by adding too many objects for your eye to keep track of. As this continues to go on, the circle hits the ground again, causing it to bounce up again. It then turns 90 degrees while turning into a square, which is followed by the same explosion effect. This time, the square does not bounce and goes straight down, ending the video. If you keep the video on a loop it looks like the square turns into the circle and begins bouncing all over again, infinitely repeating. The shape movement is very smooth and does not look tacky or badly animated. Each animation eases into itself in some way. The video is quite bright and has a positive atmosphere, and does this without any sound. 

This animation was also created by watching a tutorial, as I saw an opportunity to create a geometric design and wanted to learn more about the program (After Effects). This video is really short and is only 2 seconds long. On top of this, the animation feels very fast because of how fast things are moving. If this effect was used for a longer video it would look quite trippy and the amount of shapes would be much higher. The video begins with an orange background, and almost instantly a number of squares come into frame from a spoke wheel animation, which also causes the yellow lines to appear, which then stretch out to the end of the screen and out of view. The yellow lines turn very thin and, simultaneously, are covered with a line of squares increasing in size from the centre. These squares rotate in while the yellow line simply turns thin. The entire object and all the shapes that came into frame then disappear using the same spoke wheel animation and are followed by the illusion of the lines being sucked into the centre. 

This video was 3 seconds long but felt a lot longer than the previous video as this animation was slower and more relaxed. This video was also created using a tutorial, but helped me understand a lot more about how movement works in After Effects and the properties needed for it to function. This video could be the start of a longer video, like an intro. The animation begins on a yellow-orange background and instantly a square scales in from the centre of the frame, with a spinning plus sign on it. Once the square reaches its position, it becomes clear that there are two plus signs, and that one is on top of the other. They both separate and go to opposite ends of the square. Between the two plus signs is a dashed line, and this is helpful as a visual aid for the square splitting. The line is directly where the square splits and it looks like the dashed line and the plus signs cut the square in half. While the plus signs separate, there are also a few subtle accent explosions in the background to help make the video look more complex and professional. Small enhancements really push a video higher, as the eye tends to look at the bigger picture instead of the little things, therefore thinking there was too much to look at, which must have been good. When the square and the plus signs are almost horizontal, the dashed line disappears and the plus signs scale down while rotating in a clockwise motion. While this is happening, two blue rectangles on either side of the split are moving away from the square, which is a nice effect and helps the main shape from not looking too boring. These blue rectangles move to the left and right, and by the time these disappear, so does the light circle accent explosion, which makes everything look fluid and not too crammed. At the same time, a circle forms behind the squares, forming the colours black green and blue. The next thing you instantly see is a hole in the animation, then the entire animation just swipes into itself in a fluid-like motion. This was the first animation I actually liked, as it was very complex and took a lot of time, but ended up looking very sleek and professional. 

This animation was much longer than the rest, and this was because the animation was very relaxed and had slow-paced movement. Personally I liked this effect a lot as it had a good flow and the movement in this video was astounding. I watched a tutorial for this animation once again, as it is the best way to learn new things. The animation begins with a light blue, slightly desaturated background, with a bright red and purple circle on either side of the frame. Separating these two circles were two lines, one green, the other blue. You can see as soon as you play the video that they move without being touched, and have a lot of similarity to water, or some form of liquid, This was an effect that was placed on the entire composition, so everything looks like it is in a liquid form. The red blob moves into the green line, but does not go behind or in front of it. It goes straight through the line, creating a bending of the green line. There is then a white watery accent explosion to detail the passing through of the red circle. It then continues to pass through the blue line, causing the same effect. When it gets to the purple circle, it morphs with it, and creates an even bigger purple blob. As soon as this happens, the purple circle sends out an orange wave, which then breaks up into small pieces, which all disappear quite quickly. As soon as it does this a yellow line also emerges from behind or inside the purple circle, which gets to a certain point then shrinks back. You then watch the purple circle and the two lines for a few seconds before the video ends. I think this was a very different animation to the usual sharp-edged animation that is normally seen everywhere. It also added a sense of nature in it, as the water effect felt real in the video. An improvement I could have made was to make the background colour less bland and more saturated or a brighter colour. 

This animation was when I decided and realised I had enough knowledge of After Effects to try and create my own small animation, without the use of any tutorials and no help. I found the technical things easy; it was the creativity that I lacked at the time. I didn’t know a great deal of what you could do with After Effects and I was having a hard time thinking of what could happen next or how it would transition into it. I stuck with it and finished it, proud of the end result. The animation begins with a solid white background. In a split second a blue dot appears, then turns into an outline of a square. There are 4 instances of this within the first square, which get smaller each time. When they are all in the first square, the first square moves down and rotates while changing position. The first square moves to the bottom centre of the frame, the second square moves to the left, the third to the right and the fourth to the top. This is the part where I was confused and couldn’t think of any direction for this animation to go in. Soon enough I found an answer. They all form back into circles in the same order they went out in. When they were all lined up, I filled the first circle with a bright orange. I did this with the rest of the circles, using bright colours such as green, yellow and blue. Once the fill part of the animation is done, there is a sheen sliding over the object from left to right to give the impression that the object is shiny and glossy. It then moves to the bottom right of the frame and begins throwing out colours over the whole frame. There could have been some form of text in those colours before the next colour came up, but I was just showing what was possible. The throwing colours part was my favourite part, as it is the one I came up with on the spot and found it very simple with a bit of guesswork. Overall it is a very simple animation and could be improved. The element that makes this animation pop is the way the objects ease in and out. There is more speed going in and going out but after a certain point it looks very fast. 

This animation was created after watching a tutorial, as I wanted more ideas and more inspiration on what to do with the videos I was creating, as well as learning new skills. The video begins on a stark blue background, and suddenly the left section of an M rises from the ground. A split second later the other half of the M rise and connect with the first half. The same happens with the line of the T, with the exception that the line begins in the air. The top half of the T is then filled, and is then followed by the V, which is done differently. Like the others, it could have each half of the V fill in from either side. Instead, the V rises from the ground like a stick, then widens until it looks like a V. The way these letters have been filled in is with staggered layers. This is the reason for why the colour is first yellow, then orange, then purple. Personally I think it is a good addition to the video, as it really makes the animation stand out. When the V is almost done, the letters begin to move to the right a little, and are staggered, which I like. It looks like they have a white shadow behind them, which contrasts well with the rest of the colours on screen. I then reversed the video to play out the way it came in, which gave it a smooth touch and ended the animation with a clean end. The words say MTV because it was supposed to be in the style of the channel, hence the bright colours and sleek movement. 

This animation was also created by watching a tutorial, yet I only watched the tutorial for the technique on the bubbles. The colour and text were created by me. It is a slow animation and lets your eyes wander around instead of being really fast and not letting your eyes stick to anything. This kind of animation would be used in advertisements and promotional videos, to try and relate to the customer and keep their design modern and clean. It starts on a white background and the first part of animation is the yellow thin bar. As this moves down, a red bar is also apparent, and now the colours are visible. The first two colours are yellow and blue, which work quite well, and red and green which is also a popular colour scheme. As they move down, you can see the words slide up, which is a really subtle yet effective part of the animation. I used a different font for the two different texts, so there would be a major difference between the two.  I also don’t think the opposites would have worked in the other boxes. The text then slides down while the text slides up, creating a modern look. 

This video is and feels much more professional than the rest of the videos, most likely because this video has real life footage in it, mixed with some motion design. It could be used as an ident, an advert or a promotional video. The video begins with a camera facing the people on the pavement, then moves up to capture the skyscrapers and tall buildings in New York. You begin to see small parts of letters and broken pieces of objects, which then get bigger and bigger until they fill the screen.  It reminds me a lot of a David Carson style motion graphic, as none of the text is readable and is more for looks than legibility. When I created this, the trick was to experiment and to put letters where I felt appropriate. The way everything stops and starts is also very modern, as there are more glitch-style videos and art-pieces today rather than any other decade. Near the end the letters and shapes all come together to form one object, which then inverts colours a few times for the extra effect. I think this video grabs your attention more than other animation videos, as this is a combination of both motion design and real footage. 

This is a motion graphic of a countdown from 3, and can be used anywhere. I learnt a great deal about how After Effects’ paths can be used to make simple yet effective animations from a tutorial. It can be used in an advert, in a trailer, in a movie, and much more. The video begins with the simplicity of a black background and the number 3. You then wait a second before it changes into a 2, but not without the effects  behind it. If you pause the video while the 3 is transforming, you can see the different colours behind the main blue 3, such as the pink and yellow. You can also see a green background with stripes, and dots that look an awful lot like benday dots, the design that was very popular for Roy Lichtenstein’s use of benday dots in his pop art work in the 60’s. When the 3 is changing, it does not look very linear or robotic, and instead looks fluid and almost natural. You then see the 2 change into the 1 with the same effect. I then time-reversed the layer so it would play backwards, meaning that if you played it on a loop, it would never feel like its ending, and would go on infinitely. The colours are quite bright and help you see each part of the transformation without losing sight of everything at once. The blue, pink and yellow seems to work quite well, as each colour is visible against the black and green.

This is a very interesting motion graphic and my first thought was that it could be used as a loading icon or a moving symbol for something within a game. I really like this style of motion design as the design is modern and used in a lot of different media. The reason I like this so much is because there is so much going on that your eyes don’t look at everything the first time, making it look much more complex and detailed. I also created this video after watching a tutorial. The first thing you see is a textured background, which looks like a wall. The first thing you see is a polygon coming outwards to fade out near the front of the frame.  While this happens, the polygon moves out from the start position and gets nearer to its end position. There are many more polygons that have simply been created as accent explosions, to give the animation a little more detail. You also see a dotted line go round and disappear before a lot of the main polygon has arrived in the frame, which is a small addition that fills the screen to stop it from being dull or boring. At about 1 second in, it slows down, to really emphasise the movement of the shapes. As it finishes a polygon fades out and the rest of the polygon disappears through the displacement effect. The last thing you see is another small dotted line, which again, adds depth to the animation instead of simply having the polygon and nothing else. This short clip could also be a very short ident for a channel or a sting, as it would fit in very well since it is so short.  

This was my own twist on the previous animation, as I wanted to try something I had been thinking about for a while. I wanted to try and implement a channel logo into an animation to see how it turned out and how it would look. I decided to do it with this video. This video begins with a grimy, rough texture as the background. The shadow on the background is ahead of the real animation, to make it seem more complicated and to give more depth to then motion graphic. The circle then swipes in from the right, and goes round in a sweeping motion for a split second before the slow motion takes place. Instead of everything transitioning out into nothing, I transformed the circle into the Channel 5 logo by using the same sweep effect as the circle. The font and colours were all close to the original Channel 5 logo. It then again transitions to an inverted colour version, which is the end of the video. I especially like the shadow that the logo has cast on the background when it has sweeped in. 

BBC One Ident Research

BBC One is the flagship TV channel of the BBC, which is in the UK, Isle of Man and the Channel islands. It was released on the 2^nd of November 1936 as the BBC Television service, but was renamed to BBC TV in 1960. When its sister channel BBC2 was launched in 1964, it was again changed to BBC1. BBC One is no stranger to TV idents, and has been creating TV idents since the 1950’s. Since then they have excelled in TV idents, and the work they produce now is amazing. Their current themes of TV idents are all circular and are very aesthetically pleasing.

The first second of the ident you see a man on a skateboard with another man on a skateboard alongside the first person. The first person does a flip with the skateboard, as the other keeps going. You can then catch a glimpse of another man behind him, revealing that there are 3 men on skateboards. The camera stays with the first person and then shows him jumping into the air off the skateboard, causing the skateboard to flip in the air. This part of the ident is slowed down, and I think that the use of slow motion in this ident was used at the right time, as it made the shot have impact and made the skateboard the area of focus. The man then regains control of the skateboard after touching his feet down on the skateboard, which is followed by the slow motion returning to normal speed. As soon as he hits the ground, you see the second man go up a ramp of sorts and jump onto a thin beam. While this happens, you can see how smoothly the camera transitioned from shooting the side of the skateboarders to in front of them. As the second man is about to get off the beam, the third man jumps over a large wire reel and jumps straight through the middle of it. This part also goes into slow motion, as it is where the ident wants you to focus and is the part of the frame they want you to see the most. The camera speeds back up to normal speed while he is still in the air, giving the atmosphere a very elegant feel. As he touches the ground, the three continue to ride, but this is where the ident abruptly stops. I feel they could have done a better job at finishing the ident, as it was a complete stop rather than a fade or a finish. I did like the combination of audio and video, as the sound was a piece of music played on a piano, and was part of the reason why it was elegant. I feel the music and video synced when the first two skateboarders jumped up onto their ramps, but not so much for the third. Overall it was a good and quick ident, and was a pleasant introduction to the next program.

At the beginning of this ident you see the same foot kick the same football, and has a lagging effect, where the editor replayed the same footage to give the effect that someone was kicking a football instantaneously. In the next few frames you get a blurry clip of someone doing kick-ups with a football. Already you can tell this will be a very quickly edited and fast paced ident with many different cuts and camera shots. You then see a very fast clip of a man doing a kick-up, then immediately the frame cuts to probably the same man kicking the football on his knee, then a different angle of the same thing in the same second. You then see a very strange warped effect that I have never seen in an ident before, which is almost morphing the players together in a circle shape, and is warping their bodies in a transparent way to create a very trippy effect. This is slowed down a lot, while the footage of the players in the background is repeating. The next shot is of a man heading a football, and then another shot of a man kicking a football with his knee. You then see a foot, probably the same man, ready to kick the ball, but this camera moves all the way round in a circle fashion, and this has a very strange effect on how the eye sees this. You didn’t see the same man kick do that, but because it was so quick it looks like it is one fluid motion. You then see the same trippy effect as before of the man kicking the football, and, just as before, the warp footage is slowed down hugely and the footage of the players in the background is repeated. You then see a quick shot of a man heading the football and then a different use of the warp effect. This time it looks like all the different players are morphing together, almost like some sort of energy transfer. This part is really psychotropic and gives you a very brief insight into the endless possibilities of computer imagery. You then see a group of players kicking balls, then the camera does an action shot, zooms back and moves all the way up for a birds eye view, BBC One’s favourite view, and this is when you see a circle of players all with their own football to kick. They then kick their footballs in the centre, where the balls bounce off other balls and go back to the owner, and this is repeated. The ident cuts off again rather abruptly, and I think this is because the ident was not correctly ripped, which is the reason behind this. The audio is one of the main reasons this ident is so good. All of the beats match up to whenever someone kicks a football, which is the reason for the repeating lagging footage, which adds to the glitchy style of editing the ident was going for. 

This ident begins with the camera quite low, showing you two lines of people riding bikes. The line on the right is wearing red capes, whereas the line on the left is wearing yellow. These two colours are good for creating contrast between the two and help distinguish colours. There is then a quick birds eye shot of the cyclists on a road, which helps make the scene look less forced and more relaxed, as there is a car parked on the side and a woman with an umbrella, to signify the weather, which I assume is rain. The ident then cuts to a much higher, centered bird’s eye view of the roundabout, and shows you all the cyclists. You could only see the red and yellow in the beginning of the ident, but in this shot you can see many different colours which makes the shot varied and adds much more colour to an otherwise bland pavement. To add to the yellow and red, there is also lilac, purple, dark blue, light blue and green. These cyclists are all circling the roundabout in a clockwise motion. The logo of BBC One begins to form right in the first shot, but has completely finished its animation by the time the bird’s eye view shot arrives. You then see the red circle sweep around the logo and disappear very quickly. The camera continues to move further upwards, revealing the four-way roundabout, which shows cyclists coming from each road to join to the big circle of cyclists. The audio is ruined by an echo in the announcer’s voice, but this may not have happened on the actual channel. The music in the beginning is very positive and uplifting, making the mood of the ident quite cheerful. 

BBC One’s logo has changed in a great way, as it went from harsh and serious to much more relaxed and casual. Their idents have also been pushed up a notch, and are of much higher quality and expertise. The very common element in these idents is the use of colour. BBC One’s colour scheme for their logo is red and white, and has been for a very long time. They incorporate these colours into their idents to stand out from other colours and to have a high contrast. All of these idents also seem to be using a lot of real life footage rather than any form of motion graphics, which could be seen as reflective on their channel, as they are a somewhat serious channel when they need to be. There aren't a lot of differences in their idents, as they all feature some form of sport or active exercise in the idents I have researched.  They also all have the same uplifting mood which is created by the music. They also seem to have less saturation in the background shots to really emphasise the colour on their subjects. Their target audience is older people, as their idents are relatively quick and don’t seem to have any content in their idents to appeal to children or young teens. Their use of colour in the first ident contained more red than any other noticeable colour, as the skateboarders were wearing red as well as the steel beams. This was not the case for the second ident I analysed, as that had much more white. White is usually seen very often in football, so this could be the reason why the players’ shirts were white, or it could have been the fact that red on white can be seen very clear and it is also BBC One’s colour scheme. The third incorporated many different colours in a spectacular and innovative way, as each line of cyclist was wearing a different coloured cape. These were also very clear against the darker roads and pavement in the background. The first ident was quite quick in terms of movement, and had no majorly slow footage. The second ident was very fast paced and, because the players were moving faster, it felt much quicker. The third was much slower and relaxed, which means it had more of a chilled atmosphere rather than everything happening at once. There wasn't much typography or any extra wording other than the logo text, as the idents much rather relied on the editing of the footage for a good video. I quite liked these idents, as they have a lot of consistency, unlike many other channels. The second ident was created in 2007, and the same style is still being used today. The third ident I researched was created in 2010, 5 years ago, and is still being used today. 

Comedy Central TV Ident Research

Comedy Central is an American cable and satellite television channel and was created in 1989. It was created with the sole purpose of being the first channel that was devoted to comedy-based shows. 26 years later and it is still one of the biggest comedy channels around. It carries all kinds of comedy, such as sitcoms and stand-up comedy, as well as many feature films. I chose Comedy Central as I really like their current idents as they tie in with the sleek design I am looking for.

This ident begins with a shot most likely taken from a helicopter, and is looking down on the city of London. It is moving at a moderate speed and is not too fast yet too slow, and is just at the right speed to be a smooth shot. You can see the Gherkin, the skyscraper, and a few other skyscrapers from this shot. You can slightly hear a helicopter, and after a second or two you see a helicopter come into view. The helicopter is a Boeing Chinook, and is mostly used for cargo. You can instantly see it is carrying something, and after a split second you can see the Comedy Central logo at a huge scale. It is unrealistic and movie-like for a cargo helicopter to be carrying something of that size.  At 7 seconds in, you then realise that this ident was never supposed to be realistic, as the Chinook flies over the Gherkin and the huge logo hits the Gherkin, forcing it to bend backwards. At first I thought the logo was closer to the camera, but when it hits the Gherkin you realise just how big it is. After the Gherkin gets hit, it bends backwards and wobbles back into place, almost cartoon-like. The Chinook then continues to fly with the logo and the ident ends. I really like how they get really large buildings and sculptures and present them in a comedic way. The audio in this ident is very concise and to the point. The voiceover talks about what’s coming next and says it within 5 seconds, leaving the perfect amount of time for the logo to hit the building. I thought this was a good and unique ident, as not many channel idents combine the use of 3D CGI and real footage like this. 

Instantly in this ident you can see the redesign of the logo and the atmosphere of how things work now. It is a very simple and clever design, as the main logo consists of two ‘C’s, one normal one and the other is inverted and is on the outside of the smaller c. On the sides is the channel name, which is a good addition and doesn’t leave too much negative space. It begins with a very high pitched arcade game-like noise which is bound to catch your attention. A red line comes into frame from the left to right, and is bringing a huge red square behind it. The red line snaps off and turns into a square, while the huge red square bounces back and covers the left half of the screen. As the small red square falls onto the logo, the entire shape and the red half of the screen tilt in a counteractive way. The small red square bounces on the logo in the same position twice more, creating the same tilt action, then jumps to the red half of the screen, where it changes to black as it crosses the line and creates the tilt again on the other side, then jumps back to its original place on the black half of the screen. This also has a tilt, but is a considerable larger tilt. The red square then jumps back onto the red half of the screen and instantly the screen flips around and goes into a spiral of chaos. The black square then disappears along with the black half of the screen, leaving the background red. The word ‘central’ has now been turned upside down as a result of the spiral, which is the way it is supposed to be. I really like the way they implemented physics into such a simple ident and pulled it off remarkably. This is a great effect and a perfect example of how simple motion graphics can be suitable and professional for prime-time television. The audio, however, is not as good. Unfortunately, whenever the announcer speaks over the ident on HD, the background music is lost and the voice has a slight echo to it. This doesn't happen on the standard definition channel and is only one of the few idents that has this problem. The voiceover has an echo to it, but is still relaxed and adds humour to the ident. The voice says where the next program will take place, and then asks “Why? Because that’s what it says in the schedule, okay?” I like the fourth wall break and the announcer knowing it’s a TV channel and mentioning a schedule rather than a lot of TV channels that just tell you what’s going to be on next. This makes the atmosphere less tense and makes the voice-over a little less boring. 

This program ident I chose to talk about because it is very quick and snappy, and makes use of simple motion design. The screen in the first frame is simply the word ‘now’, in a very elegant cursive font. It then switches to a black screen where a red square is in the centre of the frame. It then rotes diagonally and bounces in the air, revealing different-coloured circles each time. At the end of the 6^th circle, the red square turns into a red line and swipes to the left, presenting the word ‘Friends’, a classic sitcom, in its own font. It’s not so much the motion graphics but the audio that makes this ident so good and beautifully random. At the beginning of the ident you can hear some sort of rattling or shaking, which sounds like a box of many small things. You can then hear a heavy zip, which then goes to the black screen. As the red square jumps in the air all you can hear is the “buck” of a chicken, in sync with the bounces. At the end, when the line is showing the word Friends, there is the sound of a chicken doing a very loud buck or squeal. I really like this ident simply because it is so random and makes no sense, yet is good and does what it is made for. 

The first shot of this of this ident gives you the colour scheme for the ident, which is bright orange on dark blue. I think it works well and makes the orange stand out very well. The ident begins with the Comedy central logo coming closer to the screen and getting much blurrier, which is then followed by two shapes from the top and bottom of the screen to make the camera feel like an eye, or two eyes. It reopens and you can still see the Comedy Central logo, which is still blurry. It has a few echoes when it moves and moves further away from the camera. As it does this it becomes clearer to see. Once it gets to a certain point, it gets blurry again, followed by the same eye animation for consistency. I like this effect, as it makes the viewer feel and know that the ident is supposed to make you know that the camera is drunk and cannot concentrate on the logo and is having a hard time understanding and seeing what is going on, hence the opening and closing eyes. The logo moves backwards and forwards in very subtle variations and has an echo very close to its trail. It stays very close to the centre of the frame and this makes the ident look professional. It gets very clear for a few seconds, and then gets blurrier once again. Once this happens, the logo becomes very clear and stops moving around, staying in the centre of the frame. This is when the ident ends. The audio for this was very helpful in aiding the ident, as it had the same flow as the motion graphic. At the beginning the music starts, but you can hear the slight sound of bottles clinking, indicating beer bottles. The announcer then begins talking, and he also sounds drunk, to give the ident the full effect. This ident was probably created for ‘Drunk History’ which is what the voiceover mentions in the ident. He then says what will be on next, the logo becomes clearer and the ident ends. I think this was a very simple yet effective ident and it worked in what it was trying to achieve. I also like how it had contrast yet wasn’t too bright on the eyes, which must have taken some thought. 

The common element in all these idents is that all of them have some sort of computer imagery in them, such as the 3D logo in the air hitting the Gherkin, or the other three idents I analysed which were all probably made in Adobe After Effects. The last three were very simple yet were very good on TV, as audio was used and everything was in sync. However, the first one did use real footage, which could be seen as more interesting in some viewer’s eyes. Personally, my favourite ident out of the four was the inverting colours ident, where the bouncing square went from one half of the screen to the other. I liked the trippy effect that took place when the screen was spinning, and thought it was quite remarkable that it could be replicated in After Effects, where it was most likely created. The last one I analysed, the Blurred Vision ident, was a different colour scheme to the first two motion design colour schemes. This was to suit the scene, and worked well. The target audience for the first ident was for all ages, as it was just some splendid 3D software that made the Gherkin wobble like it was just out of a cartoon.  The next two were also for all ages, as they had no specific theme. The last one was leaning more towards the older audience, as the theme was drunkenness and not being able to see straight. All of themes were positive and cheerful, as it is a comedy-based channel and they want to spread this comedy even in their idents. I watch comedy central for only one show but even then I love seeing the variety of idents they feature along with it. Their colour in the first ident was a bit bleak for the original footage but this makes the focus on the logo stronger as its colour scheme is red, white and black, and also the fact that it is huge. They use this same colour scheme in the next ident, and I liked seeing this colour scheme in motion, as it had a good contrast and didn’t leave anything unseen. The movement in all of the idents is a bit sudden at times, and this helps regain focus on the important parts of the ident. This can be seen in all of the idents I evaluated. In the first one, the logo hitting the building was quite sudden, and the building bouncing back was much more sudden and was very fast. If it was any slower the effect would not have looked so good. The second ident speaks for itself, as it spins around very fast and keeps the viewer occupied and wondering what’s coming next. The program ident was just as impressive, as the entire ident was very fast and kept you on your toes the entire time. The last ident was also at a high speed, as the blurriness and the depth of field effect were changing constantly. The first ident did not have too much going on in the rest of the ident, leaving your eyes to concentrate on the building and the logo. The rest of the idents are all in the centre, which makes it much easier for your eyes to follow a centred object. I really like Comedy Central’s approach to idents and is one of the few channels that create motion graphics like this.