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Animation

Playful Scenes by Julian Frost Animate the Absurd through Minimal Details

Illustrator Julian Frost might equate his animations to one-liners. Minimal in composition, his works convey a simple idea through succinct absurdities. A line-drawn character walks with an exceptional amount of purpose only to wander a tiny cube or slam into a pillar obstructing its path, while another figure dances in an endless loop of flying daggers, detached body parts already lining the floor.

When creating, Frost strives to pare down his animations to just the necessities, likening them to jokes “so well-crafted you couldn’t remove a word.” The goal is to create what he calls “idiotic zen poetry,” conveyed through repeating motions, clean lines, and healthy doses of negative space.

Find more of Frost’s animations and illustrations on his site and Instagram. You also might enjoy this conversation with Christoph Niemann who discusses wit and distilling ideas.

 

Animation Art

Dense Fields of Flowers Spring from People and Everyday Objects in Animated Works by Grif

Fields of vibrant flowers spring from a Brooklyn brownstone, basketball court, and Vermeer’s “Girl with Pearl Earring” in Equinox Collection by Grif. The Manhattan-based artist is working on an ongoing series of animations that transform objects and spaces into wild gardens in full bloom. The looping clips are designed to “illustrate how nature’s energy will continue to evolve, reclaim, and transfer even without us,” Grif says. “The concept of transferring energy is one that is constantly in motion. Energy is constantly being transformed all around us. It’s the first rule of thermodynamics.”

Whether enveloping a Berlin doorstep or producing a trail of flowers in a skateboarder’s wake, each piece is a mini-narrative that’s rooted in a place, time, or experience the artist wanted to revisit. “I chose scenes from my memory and slightly changed the surroundings to embed a sense of nostalgia for the audience, a sort of golden light that elicits this feeling of optimism. We often look back quite fondly on memories, they’re rose-tinted or sugar-coated or whichever metaphor you like,” Grif says.

Some of the works shown here were featured last month for Callao City Arts in Madrid, and others will be on view as part of an exhibition led by Collab in Moscow. You can follow the ongoing collection on Behance and Instagram.

 

Animation Design

Urban Centers Undergo ‘Guerilla Greening’ in GIFs that Reimagine Cities with Lush Vegetation

The team over at WATG reenvisions some of the most iconic corridors in major cities in what the global design firm aptly describes as “guerilla greening.” Through a series of GIFs, streets in London, New York City, and Honolulu are transformed into lush, garden-like enclaves teeming with trees, new landscaping, and thick vegetation wrapping around the existing architecture. WATG poured years of research into the short animations, which visualize practical and viable adjustments that would improve air quality, promote bicycle and pedestrian traffic, and make the traditionally concrete-and-brick locales more ecologically diverse.

Read more about the ongoing project on the firm’s site, and keep an eye out for future transformations on Twitter and Instagram. (via Core77)

 

Animation Design History

Architectural Gifs Restore Damaged Cultural Sites Around the World

Evoking a bit of time-travel, NeoMam (previously) recently animated a series of gifs that restore impressive, human-made structures around the globe to pristine condition. Although the six landmarks are now in some form of decay and have made UNESCO’s list of endangered world heritage, the short clips digitally reconstruct the sites to show what they’d look like had they not faced the ravages of time.

Included in this round of restoration are a remnant of Hatra, a large fortified city that was capital of the first Arab Kingdom, and the hundreds of islets that make up Nan Modol in Micronesia. UNESCO designated these landmarks in danger because of natural and human-generated threats like earthquakes, military conflict, and urbanization. Dig into the history behind the six restorations, which were completed in partnership with BudgetDirect and architect Jelena Popovic, in addition to other at-risk locations on UNESCO’s site.

 

Animation Illustration

Delicate Gifs by Illustrator Maori Sakai Capture the Serene Moments of Daily Life

Based in Japan, Maori Sakai imbues a bit of whimsy into otherwise mundane scenes through her delicately illustrated animations. Each gif is rendered largely in pastels and captures simple movements: a record spinning on a turntable, rain falling outside a window, and butterflies hovering around hydrangeas. Many of Sakai’s short animations, in addition to glimpses into her process, can be found on Instagram and Tumblr. (via Lustik)

 

Animation Illustration

Fluttering Moths Radiate Whimsy in Twinkling Gifs by Vlad Stankovic

Sydney-based illustrator and graphic designer Vlad Stankovic (previously) has a gift for crafting playful animated scenes. His recent “Piccalilli Moths” project—which was commissioned by Preen, a Los Angeles-based design and architecture firm, for a Culver City restaurant—features sparkly moths that are surrounded by insects and beetles with fluttering wings, twinkling mushrooms, and muted plants that sprout in the background. Created with watercolors and colored pencil before being transferred to Photoshop, the whimsical gifs “were printed using lenticular printing, a technique where the image gives an illusion of depth and movement when viewed from different angles,” the artist said in a statement about the project. Check out Etsy or Society6 to purchase some of Stankovic’s similarly charming illustrations and prints.