This week included a lot of experimentation with our resources and exploration of opportunities After Effects brings.

The video links are provided below.

I had not used a professional camera in several years, so I thoroughly enjoyed relearning and using the DSLR camera for our image sequence. As I could not attend the initial class where photographing took place, I enjoyed the experimentation that came with deciding on a subject. I believe my decision to change subjects after the initial experimentation with Photoshop was a blessing in disguise, not only as the new images gave me far more interesting material to experiment with, it also prompted me to think further about my options for my following assessments, and gave me the opportunity to practice more with the camera, which will be coming in handy later.

I have always had a distaste for Photoshop, as I found it very convoluted and confusing at times. Despite my mis-click which resulted in losing all my progress on my first experimentation, I found the content well-explained enough to pick back up where I could and redo the project in about half the time. The content was very cohesive and digestible, to which I enjoyed experimenting with once I understood the basics of the necessities. This produced my favourite outcome of all the image sequence projects, and I can see myself revisiting the resources to create a similar project in my own time or potentially using them to abstractedly edit more images.

As I was previously taught a different editing software, I was new to After Effects, though I was able to pick up on similar, basic and reoccurring tools. Whilst I enjoyed the freedom of Photoshop editing more, After Effects offered a library of unique effects that are not available at such an accessible piece in other software, like the one I was taught. While it may not be very useful to my style of projects, I found it enjoyable to explore the wide range of unique stylistic opportunities available to me through After Effects and can consider experimenting with them for my next motion design project.

I feel that these four short weeks have been incredibly beneficial to my growing knowledge as a designer, as these techniques and resources would continue to be useful in my pursuit of either of my desired career outcomes, this being branding design or illustration. While the content has only been a minor introduction to the opportunities these Adobe software brings to a beginner designer, there is far more to explore within the programs, and I feel this will be done in the remaining weeks as I build my project.