Motion

I would like to invite you to visit http://motiongraphs.qubahq.com/ - an online version of an exhibition by Quba Michalski, celebrating over a decade of his work in the field of motion design. Throughout this period Quba created several hundred of videos ranging from small independent pieces to massive visual extravaganzas for some of the world's most well-known brands. MotionGraphs gives you a rare chance to gaze into the inner workings of his projects and examine in detail the way these selected works were constructed.

I remember the first time John from Motionworks shown me a beta version of MovieType. Pretty cool - I remember saying - I'm sure it will be useful to the people who do lots of 3D text, but not really something I would use in my projects.

While I was certainly impressed with both the idea and the implementation of MovieType, I really did not think I'd ever have any need for it. My motion pieces rarely, if ever, use 3D typography. I may throw an After Effects 3D text layer here and there, but that's pretty much it.

And then came the Morhipo.com gig.

Ever since my first Commodore 64, I have been an avid follower of the demoscene. For many years groups like Fairlight, Kewlers, The Black Lotus, Orange, Farbrausch and more recently ASD (Andromeda Software Development) have been pushing the art of realtime graphics into new extremes.

While entertaining to watch however, demos usually had a tendency to lack in the art direction department. The would excel in cool visual effects, pumping more and more graphics at better framerates and higher resolutions - but being primarily created by coders, not artists, the majority were more of a technical showcase rather than an artistic pursuit. In the recent years, the new breed of demos started emerging - one where art and code truly go hand in hand. One that can easily rival the amazing vfx and motion design pieces from the world renown motion design directors.

Not too long ago, these were referred to as simply "cool animated gifs". These days they go by much more artsy name of Cinemagraphs. In the picture: A ZX Spectrum microcomputer, an Italian analogue sound mixer and a National TV set. Only TV still works.