Animating the Typography

Keyframe Animation

For use on our website, I wanted to animate our typography so that the letter D swung back and forth and the broken section of the letter M flashed on and off. I did this using transform and opacity keyframe animation in Photoshop CS6. 

First, I copied the layer with the D on it and made it into a new document. In keyframe animation, rotation animates always using the centre point of the layer as the centre of rotation, so I needed to double the size of the image canvas so that the top of the D would become the centre of the image. 

I then transferred this back into the original document where I set a transform keyframe for it in this position. 

To access transform keyframes, the layer needed to be converted into a smart object. I then rotated it to the right, set a new keyframe and then back again so that it would rotate back to the original position. 

Then, I wanted to make the M light up. To do this, I zoomed in on the timeline to allow me to place more precise keyframes and placed a few next to each other in a random order while changing the opacity of the broken colouring on and off. I needed to duplicate all the glow layers so there would be a version for each where the M is lit up and where it is not. 

I used keyframes at the same places as the one on the M layer to make sure they were all lit up at the right time. 

The finished image is below. I have decreased the size to 50% as the file was very large as a GIF, so some quality may be lost. 

I would say overall I'm happy with the outcome as it is suitable for our genre and ties in with the theme of our film, and I feel like I have leant valuable technical skills from experimenting with animation.