r/MotionDesign • u/Peachy_Puff21 • Jul 11 '26
Question What’s one motion design habit that noticeably improved your work?
Whether it was organizing project files, learning expressions, studying timing, or something completely different what’s one habit that made a real difference in your work?
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u/ReadditMan Jul 11 '26
Learning the 12 principles of animation, it's crazy how much better animations look when you include little things like squash and stretch, anticipation, follow-through, etc.
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u/barefut_ Jul 11 '26
Recording mini tutorials for myself with narration the moment I cracked some good workflow / effect / tip.
I save that video, give it a name that's searchable, and in future projects - I might search for it and it cuts down on time to recreate it.
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u/bobbyopulent Jul 11 '26
One tiny thing. While I do get why it's funny when I see designer memes about design_v3_final_final_final_2.psd But.. I think it's best to never call anything 'final'.Sometimes my last .aep that I hand off is myProject_v56 or something like that. It's fine, it helps you know highest number is best and if you really need to rollback you can usually find the version you need or if you deleted something 20 versions ago and now you need it, you can find it, collect what you need and import into latest and do some clean up.
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u/charleh_123 Jul 12 '26
I wait for my producer to rename the deliverable and put it in a final folder, that’s when I know the project is done. Keeping production files as v327 so if there are any future logo updates it’s still relevant.
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u/MercuryMelonRain Jul 11 '26
Gathering reference images & animations for EVERYTHING. Keeping an archive of stuff you like categorised for quick access. Even if you have reference from a client, gather your own to add to it and keep it up on another screen the whole time you are working.
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u/_ejerejere Jul 11 '26
Where do you find good animation reference?
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u/MercuryMelonRain Jul 12 '26
Honestly, mostly pinterest. I've built up a load of categories and can click theough to "similar pins" on categories I want to explore.
My instagram feed is full of motion stuff. Hard to keep the algorithm motion/animation only but I save bits I like from there. On reddit I save posts I like too
I used to keep up to date with all the posts on motionographer and stash but as they only really post the best of the best high budget projects they became increasingly irrelevant for your everyday project - only really good with keeping up with the latest and greatest from the big hitters.
School of motion have collected a list too. The list is a bit old but still relevant. https://www.schoolofmotion.com/blog/great-sites-for-motion-design-inspiration-in-2021
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u/bbradleyjayy Jul 11 '26
Making things start to finish without a tutorial. The absolute fastest way to improve.
Attending irl meetups
Keeping files organized and asking as many clarifying questions up front to avoid confusion or re-work.
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u/MercuryMelonRain Jul 12 '26
I'm gonna add to number 1 - my favourite way of improving at software when I have time to learn is to do a quick tutorial (or 2). Then do your own quick completely original piece using those techniques learnt. Only going back to refer to the tutorial if you get stuck and can't remember.
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u/Tight-Ingenuity-1896 Jul 11 '26
Maybe not specifically for motion design, but all work.
File History backups. In AE there is autosave. And windows and Mac have their own file history. Set to 10min.
Saved my ass hundreds of times.
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u/cafeRacr After Effects Jul 11 '26
Iterating and Ctrl S is so ingrained in my muscle memory that auto save doesn't even come into play for me.
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u/Crosso-Moin Jul 11 '26
This and it has to be sup 20min , because if you are in a state of FLOW you will leap in progress and over 20min can mean 1-2h trying to rework what one did, if it crashes … If that makes sense
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u/Tight-Ingenuity-1896 Jul 11 '26
The ae autosave yes. But the system file history I would save as short as possible. You don’t feel it. When you save automatically your ae while working , you can jump back in almost 10min steps if necessary.
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u/RandomEffector Jul 11 '26
Accepting revision, sometimes LOTS of revision, as a necessary path to quality.
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u/MrOphicer Jul 12 '26
To the usual stuff, the great tip that pretty widely used now but worth mentioning is everything should have movement, even if it's a static element (obvious with exceptions where it makes sense). This improves the dynamism and flow of the animation by a lot.
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u/bdelciampo Professional Jul 12 '26
So many things I could point to, but learning the keyboard shortcuts of the things I do the most often feels like the biggest change between when I considered myself a novice, to a professional.
Especially shortcuts for things like navigating in the timeline (J and K for going between keyframes, U to open all keyframes in a layer, B, N, I, O, plus the bracket keys from moving around to there ins and outs then trimming the work area) plus SO many more.
Tasks that used to only take a handful of seconds, sure, but can really compound over a full workday, now take fractions of a second!
LEARN YOUR KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS!
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u/ArtsKuli Jul 11 '26
Recently learned how to properly use the Essential Graphics tab and it has saved me a ton of time on resizing
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u/WaffleDonkey23 Jul 11 '26
Slap an S curve or half an S curve on everything. Cut with continuous motion. Sync stuff to music. Don't pick stock that looks stocky.
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u/ContentKeanu Jul 12 '26
EaseCopy. So that all your basic movements follow the same easing. Boring I know, but for corporate work this makes it feel consistent and polished and not random or janky.
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u/Alex41092 Jul 11 '26
Learning an instrument / how to produce will really help your timing
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u/JakeMeToTheRiver Jul 11 '26
Haha yesss being a drummer is my motion designer/editor secret sauce!
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u/Alex41092 Jul 11 '26
Yeah i grew up making music and i always felt like i had an edge when it comes to sound design / tension / timing because of it. It really gives you an extra polish. I try to make the cuts act like an additional percussive instrument, give it a little more flavor compared to something like cutting on the snare.
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u/drumrhyno Jul 11 '26
Strict Organization and workflows along with consistency in creating on the daily is the best way to improve. Consistency is probably the only true answer here and for any endeavor you want to engage. If you aren’t putting in the time, you aren’t improving
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u/aarongifs Jul 12 '26
Keyboard shortcuts. When you are quick you have more time to hone in on details
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u/Foolsheart Jul 12 '26
Learning and using keyboard shortcuts. Looking at what takes up a lot of time and seeing if I can automate that.
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u/evindrews Jul 12 '26
There's no silver bullet. Like a billion things over years.. Maybe this is top 3?:
- iterate .aep files, NOT the exports. You really don't need 26 different exports of every version. Just follow pattern of project_name.aep → project_name_fx.mov → project_name_audio.mov / mp4 final.
- Just storyboard in figma and use overlord. Illustrator is old news
- build your own plugins
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u/AppropriateGarbage12 Jul 14 '26
overlapping keyframes, studying some design, the graph editor, consuming and...trying to have fun
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u/Lanky-Violinist-2017 After Effects Jul 14 '26
Being a good designer. This helps you MASSIVELY in the long run. You can do the whole project by yourself.
Then there are some tools that help a lot.
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u/Cheap_Technology_482 Jul 16 '26
Whenever I’m making a project for socials, where I’ll have to roll it out to multiple sizes, I ALWAYS use essential graphics
I make a master comp in 1920x1920, attach all the elements to nulls which I put into the EG panel. Then I can drop that master into all of my different sized comps for socials, and adjust the positions of things using essential graphics - meaning each final video has things laid out differently
Took a LOT of getting used to, you’ve gotta make sure that nothing gets cut off on edges and things fit nicely, but now I’m in the swing of it, it saves me HOURS when a client comes back with ‘oh can we just change this bit?’. Means I don’t have to make that change 7-8 times, just once on the master then it populates through 🤓
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u/AppropriateGarbage12 22d ago
Planning before animating. Understanding the business I'm promoting, writing notes, looking up references, designing styleframes and communicating with the client. I'm not sure if that's what you were expecting 😅
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u/neversummer427 Jul 11 '26
Stay organized, name everything, color code. Moving slow is smooth, smooth is fast.
Maybe not what you had in mind but absolutely critical to have an organized system