Animated Logo

Graphic Design, Motion Graphics

Objectives:

  • Brainstorm animation processes of the Canada 150 logo
  • Further develop the design of one of these processes
  • Create a final animation for the Canada 150 logo   



Original Sketches and Ideations

This was an assignment to create an animated version of the Canada 150 logo. To start this, we were given three visualizations of a logo for any possible inspiration for our creations: the Canada 150 logo, the Canada 100 logo, and the Parks Canada logo. We were meant to only use the general aspects of the logo for the animation.  

When I was younger, my family would take me camping every summer, where I saw many new plants and animal I wouldn’t have seen in the city. For my designs, I wanted to represent the natural aspect of Canada throughout, to which I tried manipulating the shapes and pieces of the 100 and 150 logos into looking like forest locales. I also sketched an idea where the Parks Canada logo would translate to several other animals before rotating back to the beaver. In the end, however, I decided to go with the Canada 150 logo iteration, where the logo would transition into a forest scene with a tent.

After this selection, I translated the sketch over to Illustrator, where I made a layout of the intended animation; however, I decided that this looked to simple on its own, so I decided to add something visually distinct. Since this was meant to invoke the idea of camping, why not include a background embodying the night, with stars and there moon to push the ice even further. As shown below, I created a version with the background and one without, I decided to use the result that utilized the background, as I felt it was more impressive aesthetically with the background than without it.

The layout of the original animation of the logo

The layout of the original animation of the logo

Original Final Iteration

My first problem for this had to be how to utilize the night sky within in the animation fluidly. For this, I decided to keep the transforming animation largely the same, however, once the transformation finished, I had the night sky quickly fade into the background a second afterwards. The next problem was integrating the stars and moon. My original solution was to have the moon rise up from behind the ‘trees’, with the stars twinkling and fading in afterwards, but I felt that was too static. Using reality as inspiration, I resolved to have the moon go through a full rotation through the sky; I made this with the stars fading in and spinning as the moon passed their placement in the background. I originally also considered having the background be a bright orange before the moon appeared, in order to give the illusion of a sunset, but I felt that this dominated the viewers’ attention away from the actual logo too much. It was at this point that I would create multiple versions of my ‘final’ logo.

The first version was the most faithful to original design made in Adobe Illustrator. After showing this to my peers, I was given the first of two key suggestions; scrapping the idea of the tent, as the orange and red pieces look more like a fireplace than a tent. I agreed to this, as it would also mean the use of less assets that weren’t part of the logo.

Revisited and Final Iterations 

I removed the tent ‘poles’ and tested this animation.  While I agreed the fireplace looked better than the tent, the colours of the ‘top of the tent’ and the background clashed with each other. The simple solution would have been to make them the same colours, which leads to the second suggestion I received; having the background ‘grow’ out from the triangle, instead of fading in. This solution, aside from the clashing colours, also solved the issue of having the ‘top of the tent’ float above the fireplace, creating an awkward centre point. Combining these two suggestions, I created what would be the penultimate iteration of my animation.

Before finishing, I wanted to emphasize the idea of the fireplace so that more people would interpret it as such. I feel I solved this by adding little sparks emanating from the top, much like fire does in real life; and with this problem solved, I felt the animation was finally complete.

Looking back at this, I feel that this is one of my favourite assignments I have done in the program, as it helped me start a passion for motion graphics and serves as an example to the kind of work I want to do for a living.