Gentleman Scholar

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Source: motionographer.com

Gentleman Scholar, a fairly new design firm based in Santa Monica, CA, is composed of filmmakers who focus on commercials, short films, and commercials. They have an interesting portfolio with a variety of styles. I found this example on motiongrapher.com. It's based on the Count on Sesame Street and visually is very stimulating. It plays off the lines and geometric shapes of numbers. It was interesting to see how many shapes evolve and change in the small space of time between numbers being counted down. Check out the Gentleman Scholar site for more examples of their work. Below is another interesting video they created for the American Cancer Society Breast Cancer Awareness campaign:

PESfilm

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This is one of the many awesome animations created by PESfilm. This artist uses regular everyday items and uses them in very innovative ways. Pik-up sticks become spaghetti, tennis balls become limes—you will start looking at things a little differently after watching these. They make me want to try to create a similar animation just for the fun of it :)

Notes on Biology

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Source: motionographer.com

This video brings back so many memories of sitting through boring lectures and daydreaming and doodling. It's a fun example of stop motion. I loved the monotone voice used by the teacher and when the teacher calls out the student. It reminded me of Ferris Bueller. The credits at the end of the video are also cleverly handled.

Royale

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Royale is a graphic design firm in L.A. who has a very impressive portfolio with clients such as MTV, Nike, McDonalds, Taco Bell, Toyota, Disney, Apple, FUEL TV, Pepsi, Jet Blue...... Check out their site. The video above is one they created just for the fun of it and sent out for Christmas. They also show some behind-the-scenes images of how the video was made, including the sketchbooks. The cartoon kind of reminds me of Wile E. Coyote. Enjoy!

Catch Me if You Can

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Title sequence: designed by Oliver Kuntzel and Florence Deygas, 2002

I love everything about this title sequence. The film is based on the true story of Frank Abagnale in time period of the sixties. It catches the color and the styles of that era perfectly. I found it interesting the the images of the people were created with hand-carved stamps and then animated on paper by hand. These images were then beautifully paired with computer-generated writing and backgrounds. The type is integrated into the background and is always grounded to the top and bottom of the frame. Also, the sequence never stands still. In reference to the title, there is constant motion with people moving and lines drawing. Finally, the soundtrack by John Williams is the cherry on top. It brings forth notions of movement, mystery, and sounds of the sixties.

For more info about the making of this sequence, follow this link: art of the title

Immersive Garden

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Source: 2011 Webby Awards Nominee

This is the website for Dilshan Arukatti, an art director based in Paris who specializes in interactive and motion designs. His website is quite beautiful to look at and within it, he has a demo reel of his work. I liked how each page in his website grabs your attention with an evolving image, followed by a quote, and lastly the information pertinent to that page. It's interesting how the designer used a very small text size but it seems to compliment the design so well that you find yourself wanting to lean in to read it. His website shows off his skills thereby making it unnecessary to use a lot of text. He summarized his skills in two sentences. In this case, the old saying "a picture is worth a thousand words" describes this designer perfectly.

Rebirth of Gaea - Flowing Meditation

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Source: motionographer.com

This is a personal project by Jesse Michael Newman created as a gift for his wife and kids. It is amazing! Completely created in Aftereffects, it shows the endless possibilities one can achieve with this application. The video seems long, but please keep watching. Incorporated within the video is a breakdown of the layers and examples of how they were manipulated. It is fascinating to watch how many images he used to cut and paste into his tapestry. The finished project is actually a print, but he prefers to create in Aftereffects. After watching this, I can understand why.