👋 Welcome to the latest edition of my monthly motion design newsletter, where I bring you fresh tutorials, a sneak peak of what’s coming soon, a handy tip, and a random recommendation!

🥳 New

​How to animate a timeline in After Effects​

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This was a project that didn’t fit into my course, After Effects, Explained, but it’s still a handy thing to be able to animate!

​Here are the project files to follow along, or steal my animated version and swap in your own images for the placeholders.

🤫 Sneak Peak

I’m thinking of creating a series of “how to animate” things that are useful in explainer videos. The timeline tutorial would be the first in the series.

What else would you want to learn? Let me know by dropping it in the suggestion box:

No topic is too big or small and it doesn’t have to fit this theme. Thanks for helping me help you!

🌻 I also have a fun Illustrator to After Effects tutorial series on creating a morphing animation coming out soon.

🔎 I’m also working on a new handy tool for After Effects! Stay tuned!

⚡ Quick Tip

If you’ve ever needed to get the anchor point in the exact center of a triangle, polygon, or polystar shape (not the bounding box) in After Effects, there’s a surprisingly simple solution:

Copy the position property for the specific shape (it will be under Transform: Polystar 1 → Position) onto the anchor point of the layer (under Transform).

Or to always have the anchor point centered in a shape, change this in settings. Go to After Effects → Settings → Composition and check “Center Anchor Point in New Shape Layers".

👉 Random Recommendation

If you’ve taken my latest course, After Effects, Explained, or have been paying attention to my content (thank you!), you know that the theme of the project for the course is chocolate 🍫.

Besides the obvious reasons to choose such a yummy theme, I chose this topic because rising temperatures in the “cacao belt” are affecting the supply of cacao, and therefore the price of chocolate. I’m deeply concerned about the climate crisis and this was an opportunity to talk about it.

Most Americans still rarely talk about climate change day to day. Recent Yale research found 44% never discuss it with family or friends. But the data shows this is more of a communication gap, not a caring gap. 64% of Americans report being at least somewhat worried, yet the 61% underestimate the proportion of Americans who are worried.

The more we talk about it, the more we change the culture to one that demands climate action. Which is why on my second YouTube channel, Explanimated, I’m creating solutions-focused explainer videos on climate and environmental issues.

Also, if you’re interested in learning the crazy stories about how chocolate is grown and gets to you, I’d highly recommend the book, Wild Chocolate by Rowan Jacobsen.

Megan Friesth

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