( source of the image— https://getflywheel.com/layout/the-best-slack-channels-for-designers/)

In modern society ‘motion design’ is a pretty widespread term. Motion design is itself a result of development of technology. Why? The reason is simple. One cannot create a motion design without technology, thus they go hand-in-hand.

So what is a motion design?The term conveys itself. To put things in short — motion design is pieces of pictures, photos and animations combined into one video to deliver a message.

The Usage of Motion Design

Motion design(MD) can be used in many spears. Here are some fields where it is often used:

1. Motion design is used a lot on TV. Just turn on your TV and see it yourself. Most programs are created by motion design. It is everywhere - in the titles, decorations, credits, subtitles etc.

2. Second wide area where MD is used is movie industry. As in the case of TV, we can see beautiful titles made with MD.

3. The next field where MD is widely used is marketing. Many brands and companies use MD to introduce themselves, their products and services. This type of videos make nice promos for any sort of product.

4. Business and companies use MD not only for product/service promotion but also to introduce themselves. We can find such intro videos on many homepages, as they are more fun, more effective, plus this way the owner can trace how many guests they have.

5. Another area where MD can be used is education. MD videos are particularly good when used with primary school children. This help teachers to explain the material better. Plus MD is used for online tutorials.

6. MD also can be used for entertainment and gaming. People like watching colourful videos, for some it has become a hobby.

Basically, MD can be used almost everywhere, by anyone and for various purposes.

The History of Motion Design

There’s no fixed date when MD originated. It seems that MD simply came along with the development of technology. Although there can’t be found any fixed date, yet we can say that MD started originating in the 1800s when flip books were created to illustrate pictures in sequence. But at that point, there was not used any animation. The original term for MD was “motion graphics” which is still used today. The origin of this term is unknown although many believe that it was created by John Whitney, who in 1960 established a company known by the name of Motion Graphics Inc.

Here’s a video where he explains how he had worked out his computer graphics:

Alongside John Whitney there can be enumerated such people who worked with MD as Marcel Duchamp,Saul Bass, Pablo Ferro, Norman McLaren, Walter Ruttman, and Fernand Lager. All of them can be considered founders of MD.

Modern Motion Design

Before computers, creating a motion design was very hard, time-consuming and costly. But in late 1960s already computers were used to created MD and already 1980–90s MD was highly popular. Already many programs were invented that helped creating MD. These new softwares contained new tools to create a better motion graphics.

With the development of technology and Internet, the motion graphics industry has changed greatly. Content creation, distribution, and delivery are all very different now than that of 60s and 70s. Nowadays designers can work from anywhere, at any time, and still meet deadlines with the use of an internet connection.

One of the leading programs used by motion graphic designers is Adobe After Effects, which allows users to create and modify graphics over time. Adobe Flash is widely used to created motion design for the web. 3D software programs, like Maxon Cinema 4D, has integrated motion graphics tools and works well with After Effects and Photoshop. Some of the other programs used for motion graphics include Nuke, Autodesk Combustion, Apple Motion/Shake, and 3D programs such as Autodesk 3DS Max and Maya, Newtek Lightwave, and Blender, among many others.

Besides these softwere, recently were created and developed new online tools that allow to create motion videos. This great, as one does not need to spend time learning a new program. They can start creating online using various toolkits offered by a website. A good example can be our company. At RenderForest you can find various templates on different topics, pick whichever you like and start creating online for free. Here are some samples of our work.