Ran across these animated gifs while I was looking into a few ways to add animations and fun looping bits to a responsive web project. Since the death of Flash, there aren’t a whole lot of alternatives that run well across devices without a giant download upfront. Luckily animated gifs are back in vogue and much more sophisticated than they used to be.
Mark Coleran is a visual designer based in London who creates interfaces for films (think The Island and Mr. & Mrs. Smith).
Coleran dreams up those amazing interfaces we love from the movies and inspires interactive designers to create for the future. His work asks the question ‘what do we imagine futuristic technology might actually look like and work?’ and then tries to build something that follows the vision.
Be sure to check out his reel.
Magnetosphere is an iTunes plugin that combines 3D camera moves, gravity and pure awesomeness to deliver an insanely cool iTunes music visualizer. It creates it’s eye candy in a way that other visualizers don’t do very well…it actually reacts to the music.
Here’s a tip on making your experience even cooler. You can make Magnetosphere more/less responsive to the music by pressing the + and – keys. And if you want more/fewer particles (blobs) press the A and S keys (they add or subtract a hundred particles at a time).
Free downloads of the plugin are available for both Mac’s and PC’s- what are you waiting for?
Looking for some inspiration? Then you’ve got to check out this collection of motion graphic gems. The folks over at SubmarineChannel just launched a project called Forget The Film, Watch The Titles!.
It’s a collection of title sequences complete with creator comments. They’ve just started, but there’s already some great sequences. I can’t wait to watch it grow!
Audi’s new Emotions spot is a cleverly concepted, deftly executed car commercial that doesn’t show one single image of the car. It’s a nice departure from all the zooming, thumping spots you’d expect for a car that’s being marketed as a performance vehicle.
Small Carrot delivers user generated movies for small screens like cell phones, PSPs and iPods. Their short film categories cover animation, design and motion graphics.
The site is a good find for viewing, easily downloading, and sharing design inspiring mobile content.
I’m not sure who did this new Gap commercial, but the old-school pen-doodle animation is spot on. I love the way the animation tracks with, and around the live action dancing.
Whoever did it, I’m sure it was a fun project to work on.
I haven’t seen the movie “Thank You for Smoking”, but I can tell you the title sequence is brilliant. Don’t take my word for it, have a look for yourself.
Designed by Shadowplay, it’s a mix of two things I love, typography and motion graphics. The whole sequence is done around cigarette boxes and labels. There must be over 50 fonts in the piece, and the texture is great.
Nice work Shadowplay.
May the fourth be with you.
