Establishing Ground Rules

No matter what the style or purpose your animation ultimately has, you'll need to establish guidelines for yourself if you want to create an engaging and convincing experience for the user. This may feel limiting at first, but these self-imposed ground rules make content more meaningful to your audience. The most commonly recognized example of structured, shared expression is music. Even the wildest music is based on an underlying structure of notes and timing (or else it isn't exactly music).

Structure is also one of the key characteristics that shapes great books or even movies. Consider the difference between a private journal and a well-crafted story, or the difference between a home movie and an engrossing film. This doesn't mean that you're stuck repeating the same old narrative over and over again or that you have to follow someone else's rules. But if you have free license to create any experience for your audience, it's even more important to decide on the rules that will guide your designs so that all the elements and animations support your idea.

Artists who prefer not to follow the most commonly used conventions must work even harder to establish their own signature style — or to create content defined by the consistent choices they make. As in music, the possible choices for the basic aspects of animation are practically infinite — a little faster, a little slower, spinning or bouncing or wiggling or jumping or fading or …you get the idea. The guidelines that you establish for each project help you make the right decisions. There isn't an exact formula for "good animation" (the variables are too broad), but once you create some rules for yourself, you'll be able to make the choices that best support your goals for a specific animation.