Hand Lettering in Motion by Jake Bartlett

Do you love hand lettering? Have you ever wanted to add some motion to your designs? This class is for anyone who wants to learn the basics of animation, but never had the opportunity! I’ll show you step by step my process of how to break down hand lettering for animating in After Effects, and learn the fundamentals of motion design. You’ll be able to follow along even if you’ve never opened the program before.

By the end of the course, you’ll have a completely original animation that you can share with the world. I’ll see you in class!

Class Outline:

Animating hand lettering. In his step-by-step animation tutorial, Jake will teach you how to use Adobe After Effects to bring your hand lettering to life. You’ll follow along as Jake shows you his creative process, sharing his keyboard shortcuts and other tips to make your animation simple, efficient, and fun. This animator class is for anyone with an interest in the art form who wants to take their skills to the next level.

Creating your own. You’ll be encouraged to choose a word or phrase to send as a greeting to a friend. You’ll post your phrase on the class project page, and then follow up when you’ve finished your hand lettering, to show Jake and your class your initial art before you begin to animate it. By showcasing every step of your creative process, you’ll have multiple opportunities to gain valuable feedback and boost your self-confidence!

Breaking down the lettering. Jake will show you how to process your artwork in both Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, so no matter what program you’ve used to create your lettering, you are able to participate. You will learn to resize your artwork, and how to break your phrase down into layers so that you can animate it most effectively in After Effects. Finally, Jake will show you how to order all of your components correctly to stay organized and ensure nothing is lost in translation as you move between programs.

Working with After Effects. Jake will introduce you to After Effects, and show you how to create a standard workspace so that you stay focused inside a dashboard layout that looks like his. You’ll learn how to import your art into the program, and how to customize it correctly so that you can work with every individual layer. Jake will also explain options for zooming in and out of your image, changing gridline views, and other tips that will keep you from feeling overwhelmed as you begin his animator courses.

Setting up your composition. You will learn how to customize your composition, set your width and height, control your frame rate, and change your time code. Jake will introduce you to easy-to-remember keyboard shortcuts that will help you work seamlessly and teach you how to move your layers or lock them, depending on your project’s needs.

Animating type. Jake will show you a number of ways that you can animate your type – giving you plenty of creative options to choose from as you begin to make your class project. You’ll begin by learning to make your characters scale up or rotate, and to smooth their transitions as they move. You’ll also learn how to get your characters to animate at different rates, and to use anchor points to change how your animation plays out.

Exporting files. With Jake’s guidance, you’ll learn to make short and long hand lettering animation files, giving you the skills you need to create anything from an internet greeting card to full-length whiteboard animation videos. Jake will also show you how to export both .gifs and videos to ensure that everything stays neat as you move your final product out of After Effects and onto your desktop, YouTube, or any other program that you’d like.