2021 was the year our office and Zoom discussions became dominated by the phrase “this is why a good designer needs to have motion skills.” Increasingly our clients need, want, desire designers with motion skills but we are seeing a shortage.
Here’s why a good designer needs to have motion skills
One of the trends that has been growing in design, and is continuing to develop, is the growth of motion design as part of a designer’s armory. It is really important for young designers to have some motion skills.
It is really surprising to our team that so many Design degrees don’t teach motion design as part of the curriculum. As such it is left to the individual designers to play around at university themselves.
With this field growing so rapidly, there are very few design agencies who don’t have a growing need for motion as part of their output. A good designer needs to have motion skills that an agency or studio can build on. We’re not talking about absolute experts by any means but basic skills which can be easily built on – but if you can play around with Adobe After Effects, perhaps make GIFs or 10 second animated pieces, many agencies will be happy to build on that and help you learn more.
There are a lot of agencies coming to Creative Resource and telling us 50% of their work can be motion at various times of the year, which means motion design is no longer a ‘nice to have’, it is a necessary skill.
Director Phil Cookson “I believe a lack of basic motion skills could hold a designer back in their career. So many agencies now have motion as a prerequisite. My advice to designers would be to learn as much as you can, there are lots of online tutorials which can get you to a basic level. This will give you the confidence, when looking for a new role, to say to agencies ‘I have some basic skills, I know a little bit about After Effects’ so they can see a skill they can build on’