This video is a bonus video in my class, Bring a Logo to Life: Principles of Animation for Motion Designers
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Trim paths are a way to animating lines drawing in. They can be used to animate text like it's being written. Trim paths are a great way to animate script lettering, or you can animate individual san serif letters.
Trim paths can also be used to animate accent lines. Layering different trim path animations can create a more complex looking animation.
There are so many examples of logos that are animated with trim paths. Once you know what to look for, you’ll be able to spot them. Any time there’s a line drawing in, there’s a good chance it was animated using trim paths.
You can also animate dots moving along a custom path using trim paths, like in this example:
In order to use trim paths, you’ll need to have an After Effects shape layer that has a stroke but no fill.
You may need to recreate parts of your logo for this to work. You can do this right in After Effects, but I find it's usually easier to do in Adobe Illustrator.
The important thing is that you need lines with a basic stroke and no fill for this technique to work. It’s helpful to have each piece that you want to be animated in its own labeled layer.
If you used Illustrator, you’ll need to import your logo into After Effects. Under Import As, make sure to choose Composition Retain Layer Sizes. Next, right click the vector layers and choose Create → Create Shapes from Vector Layer. Or use Overlord to streamline this process.
Then, toggle open one of the layers that’s a path with only a stroke, click the Add button, and choose Trim Paths. Now you can animate the Trim Path properties to make the line draw in.
You can animate dots moving across the screen, and even give them a smear effect, by using trim paths. Here's an example:
To do something like this, you’ll want the path for the dots to travel to be a shape layer with only a stroke. The Stroke Weight should be the size of the dot. Set the caps to Round Caps.
Next, add Trim Paths and set the trim path’s End value down to a very small number like .1 to make a dot. Now you can animate the Offset value to move the dot along the line. Or, you could animate the Start and End values and offset their motion in the graph editor to create a smear effect.
I cover how to do this in more detail in my class, Bring a Logo to Life: Principles of Animation for Motion Designers.
I have two classes where you can learn more about this method: Animated Lettering and Animated Typography.
In Animated Lettering in Adobe After Effects, I show you how to create your lettering design in Adobe Illustrator, import it into After Effects and animate it using trim paths. I also show you how you can use Photoshop to create a texture and how to use mattes to apply this to your lettering. This class covers a script lettering example and a sans serif example.
The project in my class, Animated Typography: Layering Simple Effects for a Complex Look, also uses trim paths, but this time, multiple layers are layered to create a complex looking animation. This class covers how to use Illustrator to create your design and how to animate accents, outlines, tube strokes, and more, all using trim path animations.
Mattes are a way to control what parts of a layer are visible. They allow you to crop, intersect, or exclude animated and overlapping shapes.
To set up a matte, first choose which layer you want to crop. I want to crop this full screen design so it’s only visible within the text layer that says "Matte". On the design layer, I’ll choose the text layer as the matte.
You can combine trim paths and mattes to reveal shapes that aren’t just a simple stroke with a consistent thickness throughout. This is can be helpful if you want to animate text drawing in but the width of the text isn’t quite the same all the way around.
You can also use this technique to reveal lines that have a brush effect or texture. This example is from my class Animated Lettering.
Another technique that can come in handy is to animate the path of a shape. This way, you have complete freedom to transform the shape.
In order to animate the path property, you’ll need an After Effects shape layer. If you’re working with vector artwork from Illustrator, you can right click the layer and choose Create → Create Shapes from Vector Layer.
Or if you want to animate the path of text, you could right click a text layer and choose Create → Create Shapes from Text.
If you have a parametric After Effects shape like a circle, rectangle, polygon, or star and you see something like Rectangle Path, but not simply Path, you can convert the shape to a bezier shape to get the Path property. To do this, right click where it says Rectangle (or whatever shape) Path, then choose Convert to Bezier Path.
Now you should have a Path Property that you can keyframe.
In this example, I animated the path property of the letters (after converting to a shape layer) to give them a smear effect.
Morphing shapes or icons can be a unique way to animate a logo. You can morph shapes to build a logo in, or morph between different icons to explain what the brand does.
Learn more about creating morphing animations in my class, Animating Morphing Icons in Adobe After Effects. Here's the class trailer:
Now that we’ve gone over some common logo animation techniques, I have to point out that the truth is, a lot of logos are animated simply by animating the standard transform properties.
But just keyframing these properties isn’t going to cut it for a logo animation. With such a short animation, it’s important that every motion is meticulously timed and adjusted. You’ll need to get into the graph editor to fine-tune those motion curves. If you’re not sure how to go about that, my class, Smooth Moves: Better Motion with Animation Curves in the Graph Editor, is for you.
Once you’re comfortable with the graph editor, the next step to level up your logo animations is to understand how to incorporate the principles of animation. And that’s exactly what I cover in my class: Bring a Logo to Life: Principles of Animation for Motion Designers.
The goal of this class is to guide you through the process of creating a professional looking, custom logo animation. Plus, you’ll come away from the class with a deeper understanding of how to utilize animation principles to communicate ideas and emotions through movement, in any motion design project.
If you find a cool logo animation, but you have no idea how it was created, here’s a simple but effective tip:
Either download the video so you can scrub through it in slow motion, or take a video of the video with your phone in slow motion mode. While you should never ever copy someone else’s work, you can watch it in slow motion to try to get a better idea of what’s going on. This can help you figure out how they might have achieved a certain effect so you can attempt to create your own unique version of it.
Again, do not copy other people’s work, only use this tip to learn.
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