One of the most powerful ideas to unlock as a storyteller who uses animation is to understand the right animation technique to express. Developing the most clever and creative idea ever is one feat, but being able to share that idea with the world in a compelling, impactful way is a completely different feat. With saturation of content and more digital distractions than ever, it’s so difficult for any artist or brand to stand out in the “sea of sameness.” That’s why I believe the riches are in the niches, and knowing how to capitalize on this in two easy steps will get you further.
Liz Blazer, author of Animated Storytelling, advises motion designers and artists to embrace “Show and Tell.” Package your project in a cohesive way that includes all the essentials like Title, Logo, Synopsis, Bio, and Story. Once you’ve packaged your project, Blazer suggests shifting your focus to creating a network. This will compound and help you find relatable connections, inspiration, and create interest in the work you’re doing.
Animated Storytelling by Liz Blazer and seven weeks of Motion Design tutorials and projects forced me to leave my comfort zone. I am very used to writing, curating, and researching in my current job, but this course brought me out of that comfort zone and taught me how to really embrace experimentation and become more comfortable in the unknown through creating.
Research
ADVANCED MOGRAPH/MOTION GRAPHICS IDEAS ON ALIGHT MOTION [+free preset and xml file]
This energetic compilation video has plenty of micro-interaction ideas that influenced me when it came to creating some of the pacing and rhythm in my Wordle animation. Principles, including snappy scaling, fast transitions, bold colors, and “pop” animations, were all aspects I considered creating in After Effects after watching this video.
Google Logo Animation Series Teaser – Motion Pro Exclusive:
This videocaught my attention with its super clean timing and shape‑layer-driven animation. Both aspects directly inspired parts of my Wordle animation. This piece showcases how simple geometrics can create visual impact when they’re paired with contrasting colors, bold fonts, and intentional animations, including smooth easing and intentional scaling.
Building a Stunning Edge of Tomorrow-Inspired Title Sequence:
This tutorial dives into the nitty-gritty details of techniques like fractal noise, displacement maps, VHS textures, and more. I am not at this advanced level of Motion Design yet, but its elegant typographic motion, visual polish, pacing, and atmosphere inspired me to create this project. Specifically, my text card outro animation.
Create
Wordle Daily Ritual: Motion Design Sequence!
After learning the basics of Motion Design over a brief seven-week period, I wanted to challenge myself by creating a motion-graphics sequence inspired by the New York Times Games, specifically focusing on Wordle.
The goal was to capture the satisfying, clean, logical interaction patterns that create this everyday ritual millions of people love.
I created this 5×6 Wordle Grid entirely in After Effects using shape layers and repeaters. Creating this entirely in AE compared to Illustrator, and importing any files, enabled me to create this scalable layout that I could easily manipulate with duplications and animations.
The toughest part about this project was creating the Y-rotation tile flip animation. I knew Wordle tiles needed to flip in 3D to reveal a color change at a midpoint 90-degree rotation. After many hours of experimentation plus trial and error, I figured out that I need to meticulously isolate each tile by converting it into its own layer, zero out all internal transformations, center anchor points to each tile, and proceed with creating animations using keyframing on all 60 layers (each tile and letter).
The letters were added as separate text layers to parent link each one to a corresponding tile. The animation on the letter is opacity so each one is revealed exactly at the midpoint flip.
I tackled sound as the next component of this project. I knew subtle click and flip sounds would elevate this motion graphics sequence and make it look more professional. This particular sound really brought the motion to life, and helped emphasize the importance of the timing where each word guess happened at a five-second increment, totaling 30 seconds to guess the last word correctly.
To complete the animation, I created an outro card with text reading “THANK YOU FOR WATCHING.” This fades in on a white background and has a gentle camera push effect using a null object. I did this to create a cinematic polish.
This project helped me explore After Effects on a much deeper technical level, especially with shape-layer animation, 3D rotation, anchor-point management, and timing logic.
I’m really happy with how this came out and look forward to deepening my skillset in Motion Design.
Works Cited
Blazer, Liz. Animated Storytelling: Simple Steps for Creating Animation & Motion Graphics. Peachpit Press, 2020.
Kyle Adams POV 
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