From poster to video

Climate Change Animated Infographic

This project started with an infographic poster explaining several effects and causes of climate change that I had previously created. Given the assignment of creating an animated infographic, I knew I had to base it off of my previously created one.

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What Inspired This Piece?

I used one of my previously created works as inspiration for the animated infographic. For the still infographic, my goal was to create a spatial theme that would attract audiences of all ages and stand out from traditional climate change posters, which often rely heavily on reds, oranges, and greens to portray their facts. However, when it came time to create the animated infographic, I knew I had to adapt and change the visual theme to more climate change-related colors, so that people could better connect the visuals with the facts.

Step 1: Creating the Script

To get started on this multi-step project, I had to create a well-thought-out, creative, and moving script that would motivate my target audience to really consider the consequences of human actions worldwide. After drafting, editing, and revising, the script I came up with meets all of the previously stated criteria. The intended runtime for this project was set at one minute, give or take 15-30 seconds. One thing I did to troubleshoot and perfect my script was recording myself reading it in its entirety. Once I hit the one-minute mark exactly, I knew it was the version to go with.

Step 2: The Storyboard

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Step 3: Animating

After getting my storyboard and script approved, it was time to bring my project to life in After Effects.

This is the very beginning of the infographic, showing the type on the screen and the individual keyframes that went into animating the type to appear as though it’s falling and bouncing back onto the screen. Also shown is the keyframes for the people walking by.

This is where you can see the pull quote in its entirety. First, there are noticeably a lot of layers; that is because I wanted to animate chunks of text differently than others. Additionally, you can see the individual animations that I chose such as opacity, scale, range selectors and more.

This is the part where the year “2030” explodes into pieces as I’m saying that climate change may be irreversible by then. The idea behind this animation was to really emphasize the importance of keeping our planet happy and healthy so that we can have a suitable, clean world to live in past 2030.

Challenges & Solutions

Some of the challenges I faced while creating this animated infographic included keeping the content under one minute. In terms of animation in After Effects, I struggled with a few things, such as changing the colors of the scenes in a visually interesting way. Another difficulty was figuring out how to animate the rotating years and the shatter effect for 2030. Additionally, I had trouble deciding the best way to transition assets from one scene to another, like how to move the people at the beginning smoothly into the next part of the animation.

Through the process, I discovered something important about my animation workflow: I was overcomplicating it. For the rotating years, I realized I could simply use the vertical type tool, adjust the tracking, and keyframe the position to make the numbers appear as needed. The 2030 shatter effect was easy to achieve by applying a simple plugin, which could be dragged onto the layer. As for the transitions, I focused on making sure assets entered and exited the scene in a way that felt both logical and creatively dynamic.

The Process of Editing & Fine Tuning

Originally, my iceberg fact scene located at the 20 second mark consisted of the three pieces of one large iceberg spinning into place, then exploding and revealing the words “1.2 trillion tons.” However, after revisiting that scene, it was concluded that it needed to be a little more animated like the rest of the scenes in the piece. To solve this, I made the icebergs appear and key framed them so it appeared as though they were floating/bouncing in water. Once I was fully happy with my piece, I found sound effects that were fitting to my piece royalty free off of Pixabay.com. Right before exporting, I turned on the motion blur setting and uploaded the video to my YouTube channel.

What I Learned

From research, to production, to publishing, I learned a lot from creating this piece. From the beginning, I knew some of the causes and effects of pollution, global warming and abnormal weather patterns on our home planet, but when it came to researching, I found myself in a spiral of just absorbing each fact and properly educating myself on the topic. I believe that once you’re familiar and comfortable with a topic that you are basing a design around, the design will ultimately be better. Of course, there were technical things that I learned as well such as using effects in Adobe AE and keyframe timing. Despite all of this, I believe the most important thing I learned when creating this piece is the idea of mindful animating. Taking time to keyframe assets just right so they look realistic and planned, giving assets proper enter and exit transitions and more. However, if you can learn anything from this piece, I would like for it to be that there is indeed no Planet B, and we should work together to better care for this one.