How to find a graphic designer who animates?

In France, it's easy enough to find a graphic designer, developer or illustrator. But a graphic designer who knows how to animate your content (powerpoint, animated gif, animated video) is not necessarily easy to find, even today.

If you're a communications agency or a production studio, this may seem obvious to you, but for someone not immersed in design, it's not so clear-cut.

Is it a video designer? Animator? A director?

In fact, there's a generic term for these skills, which is motion designer. It's English and it's ugly (like mocheune), but it's definitely a taught trade.

If you want to put it in French, you could use "graphiste vidéo", but the term is a bit outdated.

In the same way as videaste (a contraction of video and cinéaste), we could imagine graphéaste (or cinéphiste), a graphic designer who does audiovisual production. But it's no prettier than the English term...

I prefer to call them graphic filmmakers, a term coined by my coworking neighbor Samuel Burkardt. But if you search for this term, you'll find only two people: me and Samuel! Oh, and Ridley Scott too, but he's just a "graphic director"...

So today, it's a motion designer you're looking for, but there are all kinds of motion designers out there.

1. Specialized motion designers

Motion design includes many specific techniques, such asframe-by-frame animation, 3D and virtual reality, which require specific skills and equipment.

Motion designers who specialize in one of these techniques work mainly on large, time-consuming productions, where we prefer to work with the best people to keep production times as short as possible.

They call themselves 2D animators, 3D sculptors, Houdini or ZBrush specialists.

They are mainly sought after by production studios, but their role is not to accompany you on a complete film.

2. General motion designers

On smaller productions, such as 2-minute Internet films or TV packages, finding specialists for each stage becomes much more laborious, as they are often unavailable (as they are on large productions), and this search phase wastes more time than it saves, especially as a specialist is often much more expensive.

That's when we think of general motion designers who know how to manipulate several software programs without needing to master them completely, such as After Effects or Cinema 4D.

If you already have defined graphics or illustrations that you'd like to animate, they'll be able to produce the videos you're waiting for.

They are often integrated into creative teams (in communications agencies or directly in companies), but some are freelance, which you can find by searching for"freelance motion designer" on Google, or on freelance platforms like Malt.

But you can also contact me directly.

3. Motion designer directors

A motion designer who gains experience over the years knows the ins and outs of audiovisual production, and becomes as capable as a production studio of producing animated content. He knows the processes, his partners, and how to respond to a customer brief.

These motion designers are not only graphic designers, they are also filmmakers, since they know how to tell a story using the tools of filmmaking (script, storyboard, sound, music).

When you come from a graphic design background, it's hard to claim to be a director, but that's where the term " graphic film director " really comes into its own.