PICTURE 38. Demonstration of pixelized edges in a scaled sticker in Instagram Stories, screenshots.
In a couple of cases when the sticker was scaled, it got pixelized to a point of being completely unrecocnizable. The art director emailed GIPHY about the scaling problem. GIPHY aknowledged the problem, and stated that it is a problem only occurring in Instagram due to its lower quality rendition asset (Giphy Team 2019). Snapchat – for example – shows the stickers as clean and sharp as the vector graphics are. GIPHY recommended that by cropping the alpha channel to touch the very edge of the graphic and removing unneccessary frames – such as still frames – from the animation in Photoshop, it was possible to improve the quality of the sticker (Giphy Team 2019). As previosuly mentioned, in the end it was preferred to always repeat this treatment for every sticker.
the thesis project by broadening my general knowledge concerning the medium in queston.
Speaking about animation as a medium, it turned out to be challenging to describe it without recurring contradictions. On the other hand – as previously mentioned – movie animation is often produced and marketed for children, and for a young mind it is a powerfully captivating form of entertainment. Nonetheless, today an animated movie or series does not automatically mean that it is meant for children. The amount of animated movies and series targeted towards adults is continuosly growing. In addition, since modern technology allows the medium to be used to great extent, animation is being adapted into movies and series on regular basis without it being necessirely obvious. To sum it up, it would demand its own thesis to thoroughly processing animation as a medium.
Considering the mentions of different genres of animation, using the cut-out animation style was good decision for the project, since the style in question and vector graphics were a logical fit. However I found it useful to list different genres of animation to indicate that animation can be executed by using various different tools and techniques. By speaking about different animating styles and software, I hope to help or inspire anyone who is interested in the medium in question.
Continuing with the technical execution of the project, the picking of the used softwares was decided after the test animations were executed, based on the look of the few test GIFs. As previously mentioned, there could have been more evaluation between the softwares, since Adobe Animate was quite hastily scrapped from the contenders. As a sum of a short execution period for the test GIFs, and the fact that After Effects was the one I was previously most familiar one, the choosing of the program in question was made mostly on the fact that the animation style of test GIFs produced by using After Effects was the most pleasing one.
Even though the animation style of the animation loops executed in After Effects were the most similar ones when compared to Pikku Kakkonen’s previous short animations, the journey to rendering them as GIF took a lot of time. In practice, this meant that in addition to layering the graphics in Illustrator and animating
them in After Effects, it turned out to be tedious to render all of the GIFs first into video files, then opening them in Photoshop to remove burdening frames, and lastly saving them as GIFs. In hindsight, it would have been smart to focus on Adobe Animate, and work on a few more test GIFs to get the feel of the animation right. If the short, looping animations would have been executed there, there would not have been need for extra video renders or the usage of Photoshop, since the amount of frames are simpler to manage in Animate, and the finished animation is possible to save as GIF from the same software. However, even though the execution of the animated GIFs turned out to be bit too much time consuming in terms of the execution period of the project, it was a good software for animating and composing the animated shorts. Being able to work on different compositions in the same scene while adding sound to the animation made the execution of the animated shorts ideal. This could have also been done in Adobe Animate, however both the art director and myself were more familiar with After Effects, so creating every animation using it made the discussion of the workflow easier. The used vector graphics were also a good fit for After Effects’ friendly nature considering motion graphics, as previosuly mentioned. A better visual cohesion between all of the project’s animations was also easier to maintain, since they were executed using the same program.
When evaluating the project’s production, the main issues that manifested as the most challenging ones turned out to be the short execution period for the animations, and the amount of finished animations in respect of my disposition as a young animator. Till this day most of my freelance work consists of illustration type of content with precise outside directing, so the thesis project turned out to be truly educational for myself conserning my interest towards animating. I learned the importance of communication about the task at hand and the next steps for it, and how to keep the workflow for creating animation more systematic.
For example, at some points during the project I felt uncertain about which task to take on next, and ended up working on animation breakdowns and animations that in the ends were not beneficial for the project. This could have been prevented by speaking about the situation with the art director, and could have given better results for the project. During the early stages of the project I also dove head first into animating, since I was concerned about being able to finish everything in time. However, the lack of properly visualising the ideas using
animation breakdowns resulted in pointless work on animations that ended up to getting scrapped from the published GIFs.
But as mentioned, creating animation breakdowns was not something considered self-evident from the beginning, but rather something which both myself and the art director found necessary during the project. This routine of planning out the animated GIFs turned out to be useful, and it made communication about the animating process more easy, since images comunicated the idea in more detail than words. As mentioned – during times when the animation breakdown was not made, or it did not reach the art director – I ended up working on some animations that turned out to be scrapped from the final project. Creating the animation breakdowns saved time from more possible mishits while animating, since they made it more simple to present the key idea of the animations for the art director before starting the final animation. In their core, animation breakdowns kept the workflow more effective, and gave myself a peace of mind that I was doing work that was actually publishable. Regular check-ups and meetings about the process turned out to also be beneficial to keep the communication flowing between myself and the art director.
However it deserves to be mentioned that at times when speaking about ideas and going through the animation breakdowns, I was still left with the feeling of uncertainty and lack of direction. This could have occurred from my own insecurity, since the project was executed to a well known program with a specific visual look and feel, which at times made me doubt my abilities. As previously mentioned, before the project most of my previous work had been almost pedantically directed, so being granted freedom to come up with my own ideas for the animations felt new.
Nonetheless, considering the look of the desired animation style, I did not have much visual reference of Pikku Kakkonen’s previous animations using the vector graphics. Those turned out to be the most crucial help in order to get the look of the animations more correct, since visual reference was easier for myself to comprehend, and completed the witten and spoken description of how the animation was preferred to look. In respect of my disposition as a young animator,
it was challenging yet educational to figure out a functioning animation style that was suitable for Pikku Kakkonen.
Considering Pikku Kakkonen’s brand based imagery, the vector graphics turned out to be a good and realistic decision for the project’s animations, since there was only one animator. For example, if every frame of the animation would have been drawn separately, the amount of finished GIFs would have dropped drastically. The limited amount of colors featuring in Pikku Kakkonen’s vector graphics was also a benefit considering the GIF’s finite amility to feature colors, as previously stated.
It turned out to be beneficial to animate with formerly existing graphics, since it cut down a whole part of character design from the animation production, thus making it possible for the project to be finished faster. Despite my momentary worries concerning by own skills, It was pleasant to work with Pikku Kakkonen’s graphics and overall visual look, since I find it personally adorable. The simplicity of the graphics also made the animating process slightly easier, since there were not very many moving parts in one singular character. However, the animating process got significally challenging when creating the animated shorts, since there was a whole sence and multiple actions that were to be animated, phased and added sound to. It was also quite new for me to be animating graphics that were not my original creations, which also at times gave me the worry of
‘butchering’ someone elses design. The difficulty that arose from this was the fact that in the beginning I had not any former feel of how the movement of these characters and other graphics should look like. All in all I found it challenging not having much visual reference of the animations featuring Pikku Kakkonen’s vector graphics.
To sum up working with the provided imagery, the vector graphics provided by Pikku Kakkonen can be considered as ideal graphics for GIFs, since they have clear and unified color-surfaces which is not as affected of the formats image quality, like – for example – a photograph would be. As mentioned, the GIF is a suitable format for abridged colour palettes, and conveniently Pikku Kakkonen’s illustrated brand elements use only 32 colours. Working with existing brand- based imagery made the project faster, since the vector graphics were ready to
be animated as they where. In the end the project was great practice to work by using graphics that were not an original creation from myself. By this I got reminded that in its core animation is ofter teamwork, which means that if I wanted to pursue any future projects, I needed to able to be more easily flexible and confident when it comes to animating other artist’s design.
As my own animating skill was one thing affecting the animations, at the same time the length of the short animation loops made it difficult to add any major storyline in the GIFs. In addition to this, trying to follow the animation principles using vector graphics, and the short animating period made the project generally a challenge. It was interesting and surprisingly challenging to try to follow the principles of animation, while also following Pikku Kakkonen’s visual expression. For example, finding the right amount of stretch and squash for the animated elements turned out to be a part in the animating process that demanded high accurancy, which got significantly clearer after receiving some visual reference.
Studying the additional foundations of animation, as well as the animation principles is an essential part of becoming a plausible animator. Even though a commendable drawing skill was also mentioned to be an essential quality for a good traditional animator, I felt like my skills in said field did not particularly matter in this specific animation project, since no drawing was included. However, it turned out that merely studying of the principles of animation – even when being a skilled drawer – is not enough to be a skilled animator. I understood that if I wanted to become a skilled animator, I simply needed to practice animating, and be able to be flexible using different animation styles and genres. Continuing from that conclusion, while creating the final exhibition video-installation, I realized that by being able to maintain one animation style in a specific animation genre does not automatically mean either that a person is a skilled animator. The mentioned video-installation is being addressed more later in the thesis.
There is a lot of room for fixing in many of the produced animations, if viewing them while considering the animation principles. Fox example, in the GIF where a chick hatches from an Easter egg, the anticipation principle could have been used more prominantly to create more expectation for the upcoming movement.
The beak’s movement can also be left unnoticed. This could be fixed by adding
some opposing action in the movement, meaning that for example the character could tilt slightly to the right to enhance the movement of the beak. Even a bit or stretch and squash for the character could fix the action. In addition to a promt timelimit set for animating, creating exaggered emotions with simple imageries turned out to be quite challenging.
The additional foundations of animation turned out not to be as easily followed in this specific animation project. This could have occurred, since while animating Pikku Kakkonen’s vector graphics, no actual drawing was included in the animating process. After the project I was left with a feeling, that following the principles of animation, as well as the additional foundations for animation could have been more easily followed, if the animation genre of the project would have been – for example – hand drawn animation. While trying to follow the principles of animation, one thing challenging it was also the fact that Pikku Kakkonen had its former look for the animations, which I simultaneously tried to mimic. To sum it up, at times it was necessary to prioritize following Pikku Kakkonen’s visual look, since that was essential in order to create publishable animations. At times this resulted in following the animation principles more approximately.
The thesis project made it also possible for myself to dive deeper into the case of the graphic interchange format. Studying the GIFs history and modern day adaptation was interesting, and it was necessary to do so in order to uderstand and describe the format in more depth. While I had been dealing with GIFs since the early days of Windows MSN, the thesis project and its products would have been harder to understand, if one is not familiar with the concept and adaptation of the GIF.
As a side note, while inspired by the findings of the studies conserning the GIF – externally from the thesis project – I experimented with animated GIFs in my study path’s final art exhibiton in spring 2019. The artwork was executed as multiple individual animated GIFs, which were combined as one looping ten minute video-installation, and presented as two-channeled projections. Due to time management and focus on the thesis project, the artwork stayed as a sketch, and could be continued to work on to probe the GIF as an artistic outlet in more detail.
To briefly summarise the artwork while using the findings of the thesis, the used frame-by-frame animation technique was not bound to the principles of animation, which leaves more room for interpretation. As previously addressed, this is common in animation in visual arts. Both the shaky look of the animation and the matter of a GIF being temporary and everlasting at the same time inspired me to create animated sceneries to discourse life’s uncertainty and continuity. An animated GIF in itself felt symbolic when considering the looping aspect of it, which made it feel like a natural outlet for covering the issues in question.
PICTURE 39. Recordings from the final exhibition artwork.
Due to the short time period for the production, and my own uncertainty at times for the work I was doing, the project did feel somewhat incomplete. In hindsight, if things were to be changed, the time period for the project as a whole could have been extended to get more data for the thesis, and to either continue fixing some of the GIFs, or create new ones. In addition to Valentine’s Day and Easter, the thesis project would have benefited from at least a third part, where some more GIFs could have been produced. This would have helped to get the feeling of successfully maintaining the desired animation style, and creating a more unified gestalt in general.
The problem - considering the expressiveness of the short looping animations - in some of the produced GIFs is that there is little to no storyline in them. It was not self evident for myself since the beginning that ideally there would be more to a singular animated GIF than a character or other graphics swaying back and forth. I realized, that my approach to the project’s animated GIFs was pretty much treating them as merely visual decorations for Instagram Stories, and saw them
as something that did not need much narrational depth in them. However, slightly differing from the short looping animations, the animated shorts gave a bit more room in their animation and narration, due to their lenght. However the rendering of the animated shorts into different dimensions felt tedious, and could have been fixed if the compositions for the animated shorts were designed in a way where no alterations for the actual animation would not have been needed.
Nonetheless, when observing the produced GIFs from the first one to last, I do see improvement. The animations were continuously going visually and technically to a better direction, and the process got significantly more clear as the project continued, as some routines were formed considering the production.
This left me with feelings of some accomplishement. In the end, from more personal aspect it was delightful to see people using the stickers in their Instagram Stories, which gave me a positive and supportive boost as an animator.
Quoting a recent email which I received from Pikku Kakkonen’s art director Elli Murtonen, the thesis project was pioneering at Yle, and possibly in whole Finland.
After the project has ended, during the writing period of the thesis, Murtonen has been helping and giving instructions on creating animated GIFs to multiple different operators working at Yleisradio. After the thesis project ended, concepts like Sauna-päivä has created GIFs in their content by following the same workflow that I created. Murtonen also mentioned, that especially the white and blue arrow GIFs are still in weekly use in Pikku Kakkonen’s Instagram Stories, functioning as infographics. (Murtonen, E. 2020) This too gave me a positive boost.
When examining the results of the thesis project – even though it was not possible to know precisely how many Instagram users used the stickers in their Stories – the numbers of the animated stickers’ view-counts left me with a conclusion that the GIFs caused interest, and the project could be expanded. This has already happened during the writing period of the thesis. The Valentine’s Day animation short has also been published again this year to Pikku Kakkonen’s social media feeds, which made the project feel meaningful.