Animated Gifs & Email Blasts

Background
An animated gif is essentially a file that rotates through multiple frames in order to create the illusion of movement. They are often used for advertisements (see image above) but they can also be used to make artwork. Your assignment is to create a targeted email campaign that includes both text and moving imagery. The email blast should aim to advertise a product or service in a creative way using ONLY your imagery. You may not use stock imagery for this. 

Steps to create an animated gif:

1. Read through these artists' tips on making animated gifs
2. Sketch out your idea on a storyboard
3. Draw the vector images that you need in AI
4. To duplicate your artboard, click the artboard tool (shift+o) and then while holding option, drag the artboard over to the right. Repeat for as many frames as you need. Draw the frames.
5. Export the files as .pngs. Make sure you click "use artboards".
6. Set up your file in Photoshop (8"x8" and 72 ppi).
7. Record using the animation window (click Window>Timeline).
8. Click on the bottom left hand corner to change the view to frames.
9. Change the duration to .2 seconds or whatever you want.
10. Change "once" to "forever" so the gif loops.
11. Import each image in a separate layer/frame (this is very important to remember).
12. Show a layer for each frame, much like a flip book.
13. Save for web. Save as a gif with 256 colors. Test it before you turn it in.

Check out this artist and this one who creates such great animated GIFs. Also, this site has some great examples of animated gifs in email marketing. Do you think that animated gifs are fine art, well now they are being given their time in museums!

Grading Criteria

• Creativity
• Uniqueness
• Quality of imagery
• Technical Quality (correct image type/size)

Artist Daisuke Nimura

Student design