Motion Graphic Terminology For Students and Professionals

Jargon exists because it makes it easier for people in a particular business to communicate effectively and efficiently. All businesses have their own lingo that helps them work and understand each other. The graphics business isn’t very different at all and your college of motion graphic in Singapore will teach you that.

 

Some of the basic terminology you should know as a graphic designer are:

- Anti-Alias: In order to reduce or prevent rendering of artifacts through the use of color information, which will stimulate a higher screen resolution. This method is called Anti-Alias.

- Alpha Channel/ Matte: Alpha is the fourth channel in 32-bit graphic systems. It comes after RGB and is reserved for transparency information.

- Animatic: To get an idea of the timing of a sequence, a rough animation is used by animators, like a storyboard.

- Codec: It is a video data encoding system for storage, transmission or encryption. It may be lossless or lossy.

- Cel: It is short for celluloid, a transparent plastic sheet used to create hand drawn animations.

- Color Depth: This describes the number of bits used in describing the color properties of one single pixel.

- Clipping Plane: It is the limit at which rendering and visibility stops in 2D and 3D.

- Depth of Field: This is a good shorthand cinematic effect. It refers to the range of distance from the camera allowing the image to remain in clear focus.

- Dynamics: The modeling of physics and physical interactions like collisions in as a system inside an animated scene.

- Exposure: This refers to the number of cels on which the drawing appears, in the scene.

- Exposure Sheet/ Dope Sheet: It is the tabulated breakdown of camera moves, frames, objects and their actions, scene by scene.

- Fall-Off: This is the phenomenon where the strength of light diminishes as it more further away from the source.

- Interpolation: It means filling in unknown data between two values that are known.

- Null: This refers to an invisible object that doesn’t appear in the final render. However, it does have inherent properties and can be used like the other layers in a workflow. (Null refers in VFX and Programming as empty)

- Onion Skinning: is an animation technique where transparent layers representing subsequent animation frames are put together.

- 2K/ 4K: It is related to a digital frame’s horizontal pixel count. 2K – standard for motion pictures and 4K – the future.

By learning the basic terminology you will ensure you know what you should to. This in turn will allow you to develop your skills as a motion graphics expert and create amazing designs without any hindrances.

A Look at Design & Visual Communications

The 10 Aspects of Good Design: Part 1 of 2

Function, aesthetics, space and form. These are all fundamental ideas that designers have to wrestle with in their daily lives. As a matter of fact, there are 10 aspects of good design that every designer should be looking out for. Today we’ll be discussing five of these aspects. 

1) Aesthetics

We begin our list with the most obvious aspect. Aesthetics might very well be the most surface-level aspect that designers grapple with but while most may relate the term aesthetics to something that is superficial and subjective (beauty is in the eye of the beholder), it remains an integral part of design. An engineer could perhaps create a well-functioning product, but a good designer would take that design and add to its appeal through aesthetics, making its form a lot more appealing to the senses.

2)  Truthful

A good design is truthful and manages to convey to the consumer its intended use and information. A good design does not overpromise. For example, a student from a good Motion Graphic Design Diploma can tell you that a designer’s main job is to be able to communicate a message effectively and concisely through the use of animation and graphics. Of course, this falls mainly for designers who deal in visual communications, but the clarity of a product’s design identity has to stay true to its function in all aspects of design.

3)  Evergreen

It avoids being fashionable and therefore never appears antiquated. Unlike fashionable designs that are seasonal, a good design lasts many years—even in today’s throwaway society.

4) Innovative

The possibilities for innovation are not, by any means, exhausted. Technological development is always offering new opportunities for innovative design. But innovative design always develops in tandem with the rapid advancement of technology, and can never be an ends to itself.

5) Understandable

It clarifies the product’s structure, and allows the product to clearly express its function by making use of the user’s intuition. It is at best, self-explanatory. Students partaking in motion graphic design diplomas, visual effects courses and other visual communication disciplines will be familiar with the concept of clarity through design.

So in summary, a good piece of design, has to be aesthetically pleasing, truthful, understandable, evergreen and innovative… amongst other things. We’ll be discussing the next 5 aspects of design in the 2^nd part of the post so don’t miss it!

In the meantime, if you are interested in picking up a design course, why not check out MAGES? Aside from the Motion Graphic Design Diploma, MAGES also offers visual effects courses as a specialization within the Advanced Diploma in Animation.

If you have any questions or want us to cover anything, please do let us know. Until next time!