Blog

How to animate ‘UI jelly’ in After Effects

There’s something inherently powerful and cool about transforming the material of UI. By allowing the user to stretch and distort the material, the experience can become much more engaging and dynamic. Of course it can be abused as well, to the point where it impacts usability, so be...

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How to create a jelly UI effect in After Effects

If you’ve already watched my first tutorial on UI jelly, you’ll be pleased because this one offers something a little different. There are fundamentally two different ‘UI jelly’ treatments I’ve come across.

Here are some references that illustrate what I mean...

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The 4 ways to leverage UI Animation in your design portfolio to land that high paying tech job

Over the years of teaching UI animation and helping designers and animators integrate motion into their online portfolios, I've noticed a major trend: designers do not integrate motion well into their online portfolios.

When it comes to the strategic design of your portfolio, it's important to...

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How to curve your UI in After Effects

How to curve your UI in After Effects
…….

In this tutorial, I show you step by step how to curve your UI in After Effects.

This tutorial will let you add your UI to any curved screen in After Effects.

We’ll be covering the ‘Bezier’ effect, which gives you handles...

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My top 12 After Effects feature requests for UI animation
 
Ae Fix me
Here is my list of 12 After Effects UI Animation feature requests. 
 
The backstory: some folks at Adobe reached out to me about my UI animation workflow and pain points. I think the larger context is that Adobe is really trying to figure out UX prototyping and they're starting...
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How to Quickly Animate a Page Swipe in After Effects

Click here to download the source files and follow along

In this tutorial video, you are going to learn how to quickly animate a page swipe in After Effects. You will also learn some great easing numbers to create smooth gestural animations. You will also be learning critical keyboard...

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How to Add your Prototype to Any Device in After Effects

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In this tutorial video, you are going to learn how to put your prototype on any device in After Effects.

This is a great way to share your work on your portfolio or in a presentation.  Your design feels more real and...

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Double your speed with 24 UI animation with AE keyboard shortcuts

Click here to download the PDF Document.

Ok so full confession, I LOVE keyboard shortcuts. I love being fast and building my ui animations in after effects with lightning speed. I don’t expect you to get blazingly fast right away, but you are guaranteed to at least double your overall...

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What to do when you feel like an imposter

I don't usually do this but last week I received an email asking for career advice. The question touched a nerve and I wanted to share my thoughts about feeling like an imposter.

Question

Issara - Thank you so much for this content. I'm a total newb - and I mean newwwb. I have zero experience in...

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Mind. Blown.

Every time I’m done teaching a full day motion and usability workshop, I do this really stupid thing.

I rebuild my entire workshop from scratch while incorporating all the new feedback, plus new research I’ve done.  

Click here to learn how to sell motion to...

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Motion is hard

Hey I wanted to share a new library reference I captured the other day.

Click here to learn how to sell motion to stakeholders

Whenever I encounter motion on my phone I tend to notice the design and execution. I quickly create a video capture for analysis. I add it to my resource library. ...

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How to use adjustment layers to blur your UI animation in After Effects

 

Click here to download the source files and follow along

I created a quick tutorial video to show you how to quickly create an adjustment layer, 3 ways to locate an effect, and 3 ways to quickly apply the effect to the layer.

One of the things that makes the UI animation workflow unique...

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How to package your UI animation project files in After Effects

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This week’s tutorial is a simple and super helpful thing to know.

Sometimes you need to take all your linked UI animation files, copy them into a single location, and have all the links update in your After Effects project file....

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How to import multiple UI Animation projects in After Effects

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This is a really cool After Effects feature. It’s so simple I hesitated sharing it with you.

However, it’s been pointed out to me that I’ve been struck with the ‘curse of knowledge’, as they say. I figured...

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How to retime your UI Animation for client presentation in After Effects

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UI Animation needs to be fast and clean. There’s no two ways about it. If it’s slow, it appears unresponsive, and unprofessional.

In fact, the single biggest mistake I see designers make is that their motion design is way...

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How to scale your UI Animation to any size in After Effects

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Sometimes I discover something amazing in After Effects. This is one of those times.

Over the years, it just so happens that occasionally I need to take my UI Animation composition and resize it.

I’ve found all kinds of creative...

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How to create a video MP4 for Dribbble in After Effects

I think this is amazing and people have been asking for this feature for years.There are a few things to know and in this video I'm going to break it all down and the fastest and easiest way to export an MP4 out of After Effects and get it posted to Dribbble.

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How to create a UI Animation process video in After Effects

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I’m super excited to share this technique with you.

Here’s the idea: sometimes you need to show a video render and actually show the layer handles and UI elements. It’s part of the ‘behind the scenes’ or...

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The absolute best way to get your Sketch file into After Effects

I created a quick tutorial to show you the best way to get your sketch file to After Effects.

Here’s the backstory.

Over the last few years, Sketch has crushed the UX design workflow. Not to say that everyone uses Sketch, but a lot of designers do.

Getting your Sketch file into After...

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How to turn an avatar into a header in After Effects

Follow along and download the free 'How to turn an avatar into a header' in After Effects project assets

In this tutorial I show you how to turn an avatar into a header in After Effects.

In After Effects there are always a million different ways of doing things. That’s what makes it so...

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