Information Design - Final Project: Information Motion Graphic


Apr'26
Brendan Fedya / 0376283
Information Design / Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media / Taylor's University
Information Design / Project 2 / Kinetic Typography


TABLE OF CONTENTS

 ILectures

II. Tasks

III. Feedbacks

IV. Reflections


I. LECTURES

No lectures are given.


II. TASKS

➼    Brief

The brief includes a PDF book regarding the topic "How to be a straight-A student" and we are still utilizing the same group as the previous project. Through the pdf book, each group takes their respective parts. For us, we got part two: Quizzes & Exams. It has a total of 31 pages, hence Sir Martin advise us to actually use AI assistance, such as NotebookLLM to help us summarize and create a mind-map, so we could understand the content easier.

I followed his instructions, and divided the tasks to 3 parts so the distribution would be more efficient for my teammates.
Figure 2.1: Mindmap and task distribution.

➼    Planning

For this part, I took the one circled in purple, again together with Jay (one of my teammate). As our previous working style is efficient, we tried using the same method again. Jay on the first half, me continuing on the second half. This ensures that our work will be kept consistent.

We got into a call on Discord to discuss how we are going to execute our tasks. This is so we could create the vectors accordingly, and reuse the vectors on certain parts so it would be more consistent.

Dialogs for each segments are arranged first, so there is a clearer visualization for the vectors that we are going to create. This is how we do it per points:

Step 1 intro: 
Straight-A students don't just study more; they study smarter, and it all begins with how they handle lectures.

General principles: 
There are some general "principles" to follow, so that you can nail it up.

Attend all class to save time:
First things first, attend all classes to save time, it will take you twice as long to figure out what you missed when studying.

Use laptop for speed and legibility:
Second, use a laptop. Most people actually type much faster than they write, and you'll be able to capture far more stuff without getting hand cramps.

One folder/notebook per class:
Finally, just use one folder or notebook per class. This prevents your backpack from becoming a black hole and ensures all your handouts stay perfectly organized.

Nontechnical courses:
Think of nontechnical courses as the classes driven by words, concepts, and debates—where you won't find a single mathematical equation.

Identify 'Big Ideas':
The key to doing well in these courses is straightforward: Identify the
big ideas. 

Aggresive formatting:
Don't be afraid to use bold text, lists, and indentations to make the important concepts visually pop.

Question/evidence/conclusion structure:
professors naturally teach by posing a question and walking through evidence to reach a conclusion.

Discussion exception: Note unique insights:
one discussion exception: if the class is student-led, don't try to capture everything. Just note the unique insights and synthesize your own ideas.

technical courses:
As for these courses, they require a completely different approach. Forget about big ideas; it's all about the mechanics.

focus: detailed sample problems:
write detailed sample problems, the more notes the better.

Keep textbook open in class:
also, keep your textbook open in class so you can follow along with the professor's examples.

Prioritize your note taking:
Because professors move fast, you must prioritize how to take your notes

priority 1:
Record the problem statement and answer

priority 2:
If you get lost, question or mark the confusing steps.

priority 3:
When the professor slows down, record and annotate the intermediate steps.

These are some scenes that we have planned. As for the continuation after these scenes, we just did it impromptu.

1st scene : 00.00-00.05

Book gets crossed out

2nd scene : 00.05-00.09

Lecturer on the whiteboard

3rd scene : 00.09-00.11

General principles

4th scene : 00.11-00.19

Classroom of students

5th scene : 00.20-00.23

Laptop with the word speed and legibility

6th scene : 00.24-00.29

One notebook for each class

7th scene : 00.32-00.41

Technical course and non technical course

8th scene : 00.42-00.48

Student on desk with question marks to indicate he is confused and the  lightbulb emerging to show he found an idea

9th scene

Task paper

➼    Task Execution

We decided on the moodboard we are going to use—my teammate Lexuan drafted it and sent it to the group for us to refer. We compiled our ideation process in the document below so that every member is aware of others progress.
Figure 2.2: Moodboard & ideation

➼    Task Execution

As usual, I created vectors that I'm going to use for
animation first in Adobe Illustrator.
Figure 2.3: Creating vectors

I then opened my teammates file, so I could continue from that. The issue is to get the files there setting up in the same location as my teammates' After Effects file. Some of them went missing hence I need to set proxy manually.
Figure 2.4: Setting proxy for certain files
Based on group agreement, we generated AI text to speech based on the one suggested by Jiayue, one of my teammate:
Figure 2.5: Generating text-to-speech AI audio

After that, I proceed with my part. Started off with the Question and Evidence scene, I visualize that by having them as puzzles that connects each other.
Figure 2.6: Setting up vectors in After Effects

More processes here, made sure to work within the grid:
Figure 2.7: More processes

Exporting the files with other media render settings (15 Mbps) so that it saves more space, and I could send it to my teammates easier. 
Figure 2.8: Export settings

Here's the final output of my own part (I made it directly after my teammate—Jay's part, so this video consists of both our parts:
Figure 2.9: Brendan & Jay's part

➼    Final group output

Here's how it turns out after we compiled our whole work, didn't expect that it would turn out this long!  
Figure 2.10: Final group video


III. FEEDBACKS

  • Use GenAI assistance more, on ideations, and so on.
  • Group work still need to be more cohesive, find a middle ground to balance between both ideas.

IV. REFLECTIONS

Finally, we've finished everything! I would not say its difficulty is high compared to other modules, but because it is run together with those modules, the output of this module is also affected since I would need to jiggle all at the same time, especially I would say, this is the most hectic semester I've ever taken. 

If I were to take this on my short semester, I think the results I produced would be better. But regardless of everything, I still gained a lot of learnings since I've started off having zero knowledge about motion graphics.

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