To show some authority in my subject specialism graphic design, I wanted to create a short animated film exploring the golden ratio, and how it is used as a tool to create logos, layouts, art, and so on. It is also used by all creative disciplines. This will be educational asking questions along the lines of:
- Who is Fibonacci?
- What is the Fibonacci Sequence? (the golden ratio)
- Where is it found?
- How does it work?
The outcome of these questions can be found in the animated short film, sketched mockup, and Adobe Illustrator storyboard.
I have gained After Effects skills from completing this course called ‘Adobe After Effects: Complete Course from Novice to Expert by Louay Zambarakji’ on Udemy.com and applied it to this short animated film. The graphics for this were created in Adobe Illustrator, skills which I have acquired over 20 plus years through my career as a professional graphic designer.
The photos for this project have been sourced from Unsplash a royalty-free stock library for the sunflower, Taj Mahal, shell, Mona Lisa, Greek sculpture, and spiral abstract image I used in the intro and end scenes. The Apple logo was sourced from seeklogo.com and the golden ratio has been drawn in illustrator. The music is from (FMA) Free Music Archive.
I researched Fibonacci online and then wrote the script, I already had past knowledge but
found out more about him on Wikipedia and then through a Google search on ‘golden ratio’ where it says ‘People also asked’ and then looked at the drop-down answers. I also looked at Google Search Images for ideas on the golden ratio. After the script, I then sketched a storyboard on paper, comments on transitions are written underneath each scene, shown here and on the following page:
Graphics created within Adobe Illustrator and laid out like a storyboard seen here:
How I created the animation in After Effects?
From Adobe Illustrator, I created a library for my After Effects animation and put the graphics within it. In After Effects I dragged and dropped graphics from the library into my composition and began animating. I pre-composed each scene as I went along. I found the music on FMA (Free Music Archive) I had chosen some music earlier but changed it to something more upbeat, from a pop genre called ‘juqboxmusic – All Time High – Upbeat Happy Corporate Pop Uplifting’ I lowered the Audio to -15 dB because I knew I wanted to overlay it with a voice-over. I recorded my voice using Voice Memos on an Apple Macbook Pro and then imported the m4a file into my After Effects project. I played the animation and read the text on the screen as it played. I did this 3 or 4 times to get the hang of it. The animation is 2 minutes and 25 seconds long.
Further development on the golden ratio
Additional storyboard scenes on ‘beauty’ the ratio is used to measure physical proportion of balance in beauty.
Shown below is the geometric mask, based on proportions calculated using the golden ratio. https://medium.com/hd-pro/the-mathematics-of-beauty-and-the-golden-ratio-156b948c3d1a More on the mathematics of beauty can be found using the link above.
The Marquardt Beauty Mask (Source Marquardt Beauty Analysis)
During my formative assignment, DR Anneke Pettican advised me to watch Donald Duck’s version. Shown below…