A Quiet Start To A New Year? 🤣

Ringing in '25 With More Animation Motivation.

Ryan Summers

Jan 02, 2025

Keys & Curves is here to unlock inspiration for all things animation, straight to your inbox, every Monday.

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👋🏻 TWENTY FIVE?!?

2024 is long gone, and if January 1st was any indication, 2025 is going to be as wild a ride as the previous year – if not more. All the reason to steel your creativity with a boatload of inspiration fresh from KEYS & CURVES.

With that in mind, we’re proud to announce that next week will see a series of shorter posts, 1 each day, highlighting our favorite artists, studios, films, and more from 2024.

Without further adieu, this issue goes out to all of you that are getting back at it on a THURSDAY – you’re all champions in my book 💪🏻

📃 What’s inside:

Motion Design: The Power of Motion, Explained (by a website?)
REELS: Building on last week’s discoveries – it’s a Reel Roundup!
Spotlight: Animated action from Sergio García

MOTION MADNESS

Explaining Motion

What’s the one big challenge in the 2025 for Keys & Curves readers?

Teaching new clients about the potential of using motion design and animation more often – and SOONER in their development process.

How often do you feel like an afterthought, tagged on at the end of a project after the live-action’s been shot, the logo’s been designed, and the color palette is locked in stone?

It shouldn’t be that way – but making the argument for motion can be hard unless you’ve got some solid but simple visuals to back you up.

That’s where things like this ENTIRE WEBSITE by Zajno Digital Studio comes in.

Explore that site and ask yourself: how can you explain to your clients what they’re missing out in a clean and clear way that ALSO shows off what we all do best?

REEL ROUNDUP

Retrospectives, Demos, and Manifesto’s – Oh MY!

Even though we tried our best to stay off the socials during our end-of-year downtime, we couldn’t help but fave, bookmark, and save a ton of good gifts coming in hot at the end of the holiday season.

Here’s the best of the best that made us say heck yes!

Motion Design

Vincent Schwenk pulls a Spotify Unwrapped on his own year as an artist

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Animation

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Studios

Hoodzpah recounts their 2024 – including client counts!

Petrick’s 2024 Reel covered such a wide range of character styles.
Year Two of Noodle Animation
Pentagram. ‘Nuff said.
Turn your head sideways for Motto
Never Sit Still wraps up the year

Compilations

Brand Inquirer’s Best Type of the Year
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Eyecannndy’s list of Top Cinematographers
The cardboard creations of Samuel Wilde

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SPOTLIGHT

Sergio Garcia

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Anime-meets-live action in Sergio García’s wicked experiments on IG – impact frames and VFX are on full display over the top of fun footage.

We love seeing the lines blur between animation and live-action, and it’s apparent others think so too. Sergio has a tight team of collaborators and brands knocking down their door – how soon until someone hires them for something bigger?

With the proliferation of new tools and cheaper cameras that give us all access to tons of stops of light, built-in stabilization, and log recording – it’s a look that we would love to see more animators try their hand at.

What’s stopping you from pulling out that iPhone and animating over the top of it? 😎

Know someone that should spend some time in our Spotlight? Let us know who!

That’s a wrap for this week– starting next Monday you’ll get a series of shorter daily posts rounding up the year that was in keys, curves, studios, shows, and more! Until then, keep on slinging those keys and riding the curves! 🤩