Categories: Feature

Step by Step: Jake Armstrong

With the boom of hand-drawn animation in the world of motion design, it’s a no-brainer that we do a Step by Step profile on the medium. Thankfully, Jake Armstrong is here to show us how it’s done!

There seems to be a gap between the two main worlds of production: working on cartoons and the network side of things, and that of the advertising-centric world of motion design. Jake is a rare breed who has been able to successfully traverse this gap throughout his career. He has worked on a handful of popular shows and even directing and creating his own content to working at many of the top motion design studios such as Buck and Psyop, to name a few. Add to that his role in Late Night Work Club and it’s safe to say he’s done a lot, and he’s good at it all!

Jake recently purchased a Microsoft Surface Pro and had some down time on a flight so he decided to test it out and create this animation for us.

Enjoy!

Editor’s note: In the true spirit of animation the original recording was over 5hrs long. We made some cuts and sped some of the more tedious sections up to give you a more digestible view of Jake’s process. We are still learning with this series and our main hope is to create as authentic of a viewing experience as possible. We’d love to hear your thoughts!

If you care to watch the videos at a faster than x2, go to the video on Youtube, open your Javascript Console in Chrome and type:

“$(‘.video-stream’).playbackRate = X”

Simply replace “X” with the speed you care to watch at.

Submissions

If you would like to be involved or request an artist for a Step by Step feature, please email us at: stepbystep@dev.motionographer.com

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Joe Donaldson

Joe Donaldson is a director, designer, and animator who worked on Motionograpgher from 2014-2020. Previously, he was an art director at Buck. Over the past decade, he's lived and worked in Chicago, New York City, and Los Angeles and has directed work for clients such as Apple, Google, Instagram, The New York Times, Unicef, Etsy, and The New Yorker. In addition to his creative work, in 2018 he started Holdframe. He's now working as a professor at Ringling College of Art and Design and when not teaching he can be found spending time with his family or out running.