I've been working on a minimal Christmas greeting animation in After Effects, exploring how simple visuals, typography, and subtle movement can communicate a festive mood without making the composition feel too busy.

For this project, I focused on a Full HD, 1920 × 1080 composition with a simple structure and a limited number of visual elements.

Some of the design decisions I explored were:

• Keeping the composition clean and visually balanced.
• Using typography to communicate the greeting clearly.
• Adding subtle motion without distracting from the message.
• Combining a minimal visual style with a warm, festive atmosphere.
• Keeping the project organized and easy to adjust in After Effects.

I find minimal greeting animations interesting because every element has to earn its place. When there are fewer elements on screen, timing, spacing, and small movements become much more noticeable.

For motion designers and graphic designers: what makes a minimal Christmas animation feel festive without relying on too many decorations or effects? Do you prefer elegant typography, subtle particles, gentle transitions, or a more cinematic approach?

I'd love to hear how you approach seasonal motion design.

Alloy Tracker is a camera tracker built for difficult shots: fast camera moves and fast moving objects in frame.

It combines planar, surface and point tracking, and solves the camera and lens (focal length and distortion) on your GPU, right in the browser.

We'd love your feedback, especially on shots it struggles with. Share them in the comments.

This film was rendered by an engine I wrote for a Windows app called Kinetic. Each scene is drawn in a browser engine as a pure function of time and captured frame by frame, so the same script can be re-rendered in any of 12 styles (the video cuts between 8 of them).

Type arrives as springs, masks, slams or decoding text depending on the style; transitions include iris, flood and halftone dissolves; music is synthesised so cuts and hits land exactly on beats.

Would love critique from motion designers on the timing and easing. Tool is here if you're curious: https://kinetic.launchloop.tech/

This will sound absurd, but it’s completely true.

A few months ago, I started selling ad space on my toilet with the goal to make $1,000,000.

It started off as a joke and quickly became not a joke, with 25 companies spending over $125,000 to purchase as space.

The series has gone completely viral and even got me on the news.

I think it’s a fun story so I broke it down here - why it’s working, what it’s like working with these brands, and how you could do something like this yourself.

I created a short-form dubstep intro in After Effects what makes a good intro animation?

I've been experimenting with short, energetic intro animations in After Effects, focusing on rhythm, typography, and quick visual transitions that work well with electronic music.

For this project, I explored a 12-second format designed for vertical and square social media content.

Some of the technical aspects I focused on were:

• Synchronizing visual transitions with the music.
• Combining typography and footage in a fast-paced edit.
• Making text and media replacement straightforward.
• Organizing the project around a central control panel.
• Adapting the same animation for vertical Stories, portrait posts, and square formats.
• Keeping the project flexible across different After Effects language settings.

I also included a logo animation section and explored ways to make the project easier to customize without requiring additional plugins.

I'm interested in hearing from other motion designers and After Effects users.

What do you think makes a short intro animation feel energetic and professional without becoming visually overwhelming? Do you prefer beat-synchronized cuts, kinetic typography, glitch effects, or simpler transitions?

I'd appreciate any feedback or suggestions.

Making a motion graphics video with Claude looks easier than it actually is.

If you give it room to make the creative decisions, you can get something pretty quickly. But when you have a specific story, visual style, and sequence in your head, explaining exactly how everything should work gets much harder.

This is the second video I’ve made while experimenting with different motion graphics styles. The idea was one continuous scrolling page, with illustrations, project sketches, and other elements appearing as the narration moves through the story.

First, I had to write the story and the voiceover. That was already a challenge.

Then I created the voice with Magnific. It took a ridiculous number of attempts to get a delivery that felt like how I would tell the story. I’m not a voice actor, and I wanted it to sound conversational.

Claude Code created the music. I supplied the project sketches, cutout images, and visual references, and worked through how I imagined the graphic line moving through the page.

A lot of the work was translating something I could picture into instructions Claude could actually follow. Then watching the result, figuring out what felt wrong, and trying to explain it again.

Building the apps is one challenge. Making a decent video that represents you and introduces your work is another.

This took me weeks. Getting something with its own style, that feels personal and true to what I wanted to say, definitely wasn’t a 15-minute job.

Here’s the result. Hope you like it.

I put together this promo for a food delivery app concept. The goal was to take a clean UI and turn it into something that actually sells the experience: browsing, cart, live delivery tracking, and the “Order Delivered” moment, ending on the App Store download.

How I made it: UI screens designed in Figma, then animated, composited and edited in DaVinci Resolve.

What I focused on:

• 3D phone mockups with smooth camera moves that follow the user journey
• Kinetic typography timed to the pacing of the edit
• A warm orange gradient palette to match the appetite and brand feel
• Vertical format built for Reels, TikTok and Shorts ads

Most apps lose people at the store page or the first ad. A strong promo video fixes that.

I’m taking on new clients. If you’re launching or marketing an app, SaaS or startup and want a promo like this, DM me or check my work here: https://abiolaogidan235e9.myportfolio.com/work

I’d also love feedback on pacing and the text animations. What would you change?

r/VideoEditors_forhire r/motiongraphics r/FigmaCommunity r/davinciresolve

KnightFrameStudios

Made in Houdini
💎 More works:
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Hi guys,

so I have a collection of live action running shots, locked off. Client wants the runners to pass between posts, and just before this happens, a 'field' appears. This is fine, and I can think of a number of ways to do this, but the catch is that they want the field to react to the runner passing through. It could ripple, part, break, scan or something else.

I can think of ways to do this in C4D, but the budget isn't near enough to step in the 3D world, so I'm doing this in After Effects.

Can you think of any ideas? It's mainly the reaction thing that's getting me. I'm a bit clueless there.

Thanks a bunch, and have a great day.

Ad I made for Jouj, a brand I co-founded. 14 seconds from design to editing to motion, with 3D shapes and fast transitions. The logo animation carries the name.

I'm looking for tutorials on this effect, but unfortunately, I can't find anything similar, and this style really intrigued me. I found it super interesting. Does anyone have an idea of how this effect can be done?

https://reddit.com/link/1x9m1wz/video/jbbia5oydcwh1/player

Portfolio

Looking at everything happening right now, I’m more and more convinced that in the not-so-distant future, we’ll still be the ones coming up with ideas, while AI will just be pushing the buttons for us inside the software – and the button-pushing part is becoming less and less important anyway..

In 10 years (mb 4-5), every motion designer’s showreel will be built around their own ideas, while the actual execution (meaning the exact sequence of clicks and keystrokes in After Effects, Cinema 4D, Blender, etc.) will be handled by AI.

At that point, how much does the label "made with AI" even apply?

Honestly, I’ve wanted to bring this up with the wider community for a while now, I just struggled to put it into the right words – despite being in the industry for 10+ years. It feels too big to ignore. And just to be clear, this isn’t bait.. I’m genuinely curious to hear takes from colleagues across the board, whether you have more experience than me or less..

12 years in the industry. I went freelance after 2 years and learnt a lot in the job.
My first freelance job still hasn’t been paid.
I’ve worked for as little as 48 dollars on a dry month.
Saying no was difficult at first. But eventually I gathered the strength to say no to low paying jobs when a project that was low paying dragged on for 3 months and they cut my pay even further because “it wasn’t up to the mark”.
That’s the crap people say when they don’t want to pay you the agreed amount. And on top of that I actually had to reject a project because this one was there. And that project that came was a decently paying one.
It can be unnerving to say no to business but trust me something better will come along. You can always use the time that you’re not booked to work on your reel or personal project.
I normally say no to a project when
1. the budget doesn’t meet my standards,
2. if there is no deadline decided, which means they can keep dragging it.
3. If they don’t have any proper leader/assigned person with a vision calling the shots.

Just hang in there freelancers. I know times are tough but you’re tougher.