REFLECTION
For this module I was tasked with independent research, development and production. The
project involved using creative design processes to develop a design solution to an industry
standard brief. To begin I needed to write my own brief which would cover a range of skills
that I have identified I want to develop further. I wanted my brief to encompass design skills
that I am keen to learn more about and improve on. For this reason I decided to challenge
myself to create an animation for a company.
After the previous module which focuesed on human centred design spefically in the health
industry I wanted to focus on the company Headspace to use for my Independent project.
I chose Headspace as I really like what the brand is about and the visual identity. Through
my reasearch I found lots of animated resources created by the company. These animations
are an intergral part of their visual identity. The animations support the users through
their meditation sessions. They are also used across their social media platforms such as
Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.
The animations often follow the structure of a character/characters doing activities which
could realte to the audio voiceover. For example as the voice over talks through dealing with
emotions the charcters would be doing things to narrate the video through visuals.
As this project was ongoing throughout the summer I wanted to try and make my animation
summery and relatable to the time I was working on it. This made me think of the idea of
Headspace on holiday. I carried out some research to look in to how people cope with having
time of work to fully relax and how headspace could help in assiting people to use their
holidays to completely switch off and establish new routines by introducing meditation.
The animation theme is based around the main character going on holiday and how using Headspace on holiday can help him to relax and switch off from work to make the
most of their holiday and introduce new routines relieving feelings of stress and anixety.
Overall I am pleased with the outcome of my animation. I think the idea behind it works well and it fits I have adapted my design styles to match the branding and ideals
of Headspace. Using Adobe Animate was a learning curve and I beileve it will be very useful to carry forward on the job for social media animations both for GSL Media and
clients.
I do think that my animation has room for improvement and that I could look into making the animation flow better by using tweens and motion effects. Improving the
animation style and pace would have made my animation look more professional and not too jumpy. I also think I could work on improving the pace would make the animation
better as it some parts I had to speed it up to match the voice over with the visuals. This has taught be that perhaps and easier way around it would have been to record
the voice over first and then created the animation and timings alongside this. Moving forward I think my work would benefit from further exploration into the software and
watching tutorial videos to tighten up my process and skills.
