One of the things I do at Blueprint is create custom motion graphics for client logos and videos that I work on. It is, in a word, awesome. One of the things I like most about my job. It can be challenging, creatively and technically, especially under a deadline or hour – limit, but it is rewarding work.

Of course, when it comes to repetitive motion graphics that have, at most, minor changes in content or animation (like lower – thirds) it helps to have a template so that these minor changes can be made without having to recreate the entire animated graphic from scratch. If were to download something from a motion graphic vendor website (like video-hive) this wouldn’t be much of an issue. But that’s not how I do things. at Blueprint, downloading something, anything, from a third – party vendor is just not the way we work. Everything we make is customized from the bottom up to the specific needs and design-direction of the client; no corner-cutting allowed.

Recently, while working on custom graphics for our video production work for the upcoming Health IT Leadership Summit, I needed to design and create an animated lower-third. As we would be interviewing members and representatives from several different companies, I knew I would need to generate a template from the animation and design. It is definitely a process to get everything right: brainstorming, running through ideas, creating quick mockups and re-ordering keyframe setups on the fly to get an idea of what the end product should be, and all within the mindset constraint of knowing that your final render had to be subservient to fitting within the construct of a template. But in the end, it is, as always, satisfying work, and great to see the final product come together, knowing that from scratch to sculpture it is completely unique; a sort of representative of your own organic engineering.

By: John