Blog posts filed under Tips

If you’re wondering how to create tilt shift blur in After Effects then you’re not alone, it’s a lovely effect that can bring a really cool aesthetic to your projects.

In this post I’ll show you how to create a tilt shift effect manually, and then we’ll take a look... Read more →

My latest project for Loop is an online course to help motion designers with the business side of motion design.

The new course: business processes for motion designers, is basically everything I’ve learned over the past 14 years or so of freelance life, and it’s everything I wish I’d... Read more →

As part of my freelance motion design business, I often have to create proposals for prospective clients. Over the years I’ve tried to perfect the proposal process, and I’ve found that a simple professional approach often works best when trying to win... Read more →

Creating a custom logo animation for your business is a great way to enhance your brand image and make your logo more memorable, especially when it’s being used in video content, and on your website.

Take this custom animation for Dropkick Jonnys, it now serves as a great animated... Read more →

Before starting a new motion design project you should absolutely be putting together a statement of work: a simple document that puts down in writing exactly what is going to be done throughout the project and the deliverables to be produced along the way.

Having a written log of... Read more →

Update: The Numero Script has now been updated to include a Beta version which includes the ability to add commas and decimals!

The first version of the Numero script was designed to take a lot of the legwork out of creating a... Read more →

* Disclaimer: I’m not a lawyer and this post is not legal advice. This post is advisory, please do your homework and consult an actual lawyer before making legal decisions. *

I’ve made a new addition to the Freelance checklist, an item which should... Read more →

Throughout my motion design work I’ve animated a fair few paragraphs for explainer and social media videos - much like the example you see here for trivago:

Although simple on the surface, the technique to... Read more →

UPDATE: The script has now been updated to make it easier than ever to create a sliding number counter in After Effects

My latest project for Loop is a brand new script for creating odometers or sliding number counters in After Effects like the one below:

Read more →

I’ve been doing quite a bit of reading recently, first up was: Thinking, fast and slow; a wonderful insight into how people think, and how humans make decisions in everyday life. The second was: The checklist manifesto - a fascinating read about the power of the humble checklist... Read more →

Following on from my post about starting voice over work as part of my motion design projects I thought I’d do a quick run down of the setup I use:

Before I started I did quite a bit of... Read more →

Update:
I now operate on the following basis: in order to confirm a booking the client agrees to pay for the specified number of days in full.

Confirming a booking means potentially turning other work down, as a result that time should be paid for in full.

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My... Read more →

Over the past few weeks I’ve been working on a new motion graphics promotional video for my own website (something similar to my old motion graphics promo).

In this new promo I’ve used plenty of shape layers, halfway through animating I ran into a slight problem though: I’d... Read more →

Following on from freelance tip #1 - here’s the second tip I thought I’d share:

Consider getting some office space

When I first started freelancing I did what most freelancers do: I worked from home. It was great at first, no more commuting! I could jump into work straight... Read more →

I’ve been freelancing full-time for a couple of years now (I freelanced part-time while at Uni so I’ve actually been doing it for quite a while!) and in that time there’s been a fair few ups and downs. As a result I’ve decided to put together a couple of blog... Read more →

I recently upgraded to the Adobe Creative Cloud & one feature I was really looking forward to trying out was the Cinema 4D Lite package within After Effects. I’ve experimented with Cinema 4D before, mainly just creating a couple of random objects here and there, but only ever with the... Read more →

When I released Skylights a few months ago, I wanted to track how many people actually clicked the download link to give me a rough idea of how many people were trying them out.

Luckily, Google Analytics lets you track particular interactions on your site using ‘Events’. Setting up... Read more →

I’ve always loved watching video tutorials on the web, I find having someone talk you through how to do something and being able to watch them do it is far more engaging than simply following a blog post with some screenshots.

So I’ve decided to have a go myself! I’ve... Read more →

Over the weekend I needed to resize an entire folder full of photos from my brothers graduation so I could upload them to the web without it taking 100 years to complete. I could have simply opened up each image in Photoshop, resized & re-saved them however that would have... Read more →