Undergraduate · Studio · 4 credits
Motion Graphics
Time, motion, and the story that moves
PREREQUISITES
MEDA 116 and MEDA 214
OFFERED
odd spring
LEVEL
300-level
A studio course exploring motion design as a conceptual and storytelling practice. Students learn to think in time — using color, movement, pacing, and narrative to communicate ideas that static design cannot. Projects include design in motion, kinetic typography, and a title sequence. Storyboarding is central to the process. Software — After Effects and Adobe Animate — serves the concept, not the other way around.
Syllabus
Key information — full syllabus available as PDF
LEARNING OUTCOMES
Define and apply core motion design principles: timing, pacing, rhythm, easing, and editing
Conceptualize, storyboard, and design time-based media for a defined message or story
Analyze the historical, cultural, and conceptual contexts of motion graphics and time-based media
Work fluently in Adobe After Effects across multiple production workflows
Integrate sound and image as a unified design decision
Communicate design concepts clearly through writing, critique, and presentation
Develop independent research and self-teaching habits appropriate to a rapidly changing field
STRUCTURE
3 major projects: Logo in Motion, Kinetic Typography, Title Sequence
Each project follows a full arc: research, concept, storyboard, animatic, production, refinement
Weekly After Effects skill instruction alongside concept and history
Art history thread runs through every unit — from early cinema through contemporary motion design
Readings from Shaw, Motion Design Toolkit and Blazer, Animated Storytelling
Mid-project and final critiques for each project
Required: Storyboard Notebook (16:9 format)
ASSESSMENT
[Current offering: traditional rubric-based grading] - 60% project work: process (40%), realization (40%), presentation (20%) - 30% knowledge and intellectual engagement: exercises, readings, quizzes, final - 10% professionalism: participation, motivation, collaboration, consistency
Note: Future offerings of this course will move to an ungrading structure consistent with the rest of my teaching practice.
TEEXTBOOKS
Shaw, Austin — Motion Design Toolkit (ISBN 9781032060576) -
Blazer, Liz — Animated Storytelling (ISBN 9780135667859) -
Required: Storyboard Notebook 16:9 by Creative Spark
Projects
Major projects per semester:
Course Overview
- Motion graphics sit at the intersection of graphic design, cinema, and sound — where the image moves, and meaning accumulates over time. This course builds foundational fluency in time-based media through three sustained projects: a logo animation, a kinetic typography piece, and an original title sequence. Each project moves through research, concept, storyboard, production, and refinement.
The course is organized around a recurring question: what does design gain — and lose — when it unfolds in time? Students work in Adobe After Effects, but this is not a software training class. Principles come first. Tools follow. Because the technology involved in motion graphics changes rapidly, students are expected to develop the capacity to research and teach themselves new techniques. That self-sufficiency is part of what the course builds.
A thread of design history runs through every unit — from early cinema and Bauhaus constructivism through Dada typography, the title sequence tradition, and the contemporary landscape of motion design. Students are expected to look carefully at existing work and to bring that looking into their own practice.
I have taught versions of this course at the University of Minnesota Duluth, Northwest Missouri State University, and Pacific University. The iteration described here is the first at Pacific.
Course Reflection
- This course sits differently in the curriculum than my other courses. Graphic Design 1 and GD2 are about learning to see and learning to say something. Motion Graphics assumes students can already do both — and asks what happens when you add time. That shift changes the nature of the design problem. A static composition is resolved in a moment. A time-based piece is resolved across a duration. Students have to learn to think in sequences, in timing, in cause and effect across frames.
The art history thread is not decorative. Every unit is in conversation with a lineage: the storyboarding exercises with Méliès and early cinema; the logo animation with Bauhaus and Constructivism; the kinetic typography with Dada and Surrealist experiments in experimental letterform; the title sequence with Saul Bass and Maurice Binder, who established the grammar of that form. I want students to understand that every design decision they make is embedded in a history — and that knowing that history gives them more to work with, not less.
Kinetic Typography is the project I am still learning to teach well. Students with prior typographic knowledge and sensibility move through it differently than students from other backgrounds. The gap is real — in the sophistication of their choices, in their ability to let the typography carry meaning rather than decoration. I have not fully resolved how to address this. I am considering whether to scaffold the typographic content more explicitly in the weeks before the project begins, or whether the difficulty itself is part of what the project should be teaching. That question is open.
The course is currently graded using a traditional rubric structure. Future offerings will move to ungrading, consistent with my practice across the rest of my courses.
Selected Student Self-Reflections