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Four Cool Things This Week in Animated GIFs

Things sure have changed since the 90s/early 00s and the sweet staple of internet culture that is the animated GIF may no longer just about dancing unicorns or twinkling smileys on MySpace. It still sits nestled in a browser, infinitely on repeat, doing its thing. It’s still linkable, post-able and quite suited to the big Tumblr playground.
But perhaps now the humourous aspect of the GIF has now subsided somewhat and has potential to become successful through all its subtleties. It can say more than a still photograph in terms of describing time and space.

The above are my first real explorations into the capabilities of creating GIFs in a different way. One uses video frames (24fps) to show the small changes to a light reflection, while the other is from multiple still photographs and is then partially animated to show movement in a specific area. They aren’t quite there yet, but exciting nevertheless, and hopefully precursors to bigger projects.

And four things of the animated GIF kind?

Jamie Beck and David Berg’s collaborative ‘Cinemagraphs’ completely changed the way I thought about GIFs. Created from video footage, they have a seamless quality and photographic approach. The use of isolated animation on parts of an image have an almost doll-like effect when applied to people.

Ignacio Torres puts a little sparkle into fashion with his series ‘Stellar’ Stemming from the idea that humans are made from cosmic matter, the movement serves to heighten time and space. The idea that fashion editorials are no longer destined only for 2D print media is something I find interesting.. how do we stand out in a completely visually saturated environment?

Ruslan Khasanov’s Animated liquid typography is dynamic and not quite like any typography I’ve seen before. I can just watch the same letter over and over again.