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👋 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

Last month, I published videos #5 and 6 of the Adobe Illustrator Essentials series. I'm releasing these every other week, but all 8 videos are available now as a class on Skillshare.

I also published the completely rerecorded version of my class, Easy Animated Icons in Adobe After Effects. That completes the illustration to animation fast track...

⚡ Illustration to Animation Fast Track

Learn how to create vector illustrations and bring them to life with animation. By the end of this 3-class series, you’ll have an illustrated and animate set of icons, like this:

As you watch, you can replicate my icons, or create your own unique icons!

Here’s what you’ll learn:

#1: Adobe Illustrator Essentials: Beginner’s Guide to Illustration - Free or watch on Skillshare​

Get started with Adobe Illustrator, even if you've never opened it before. Includes a free downloadable workbook!

#2: Illustrate with Shapes: Design Vector Graphics in Adobe Illustrator​

Learn how to design a clean, professional set of icons; no drawing skills required.

#3: Easy Animated Icons in Adobe After Effects​

Never be intimidated by After Effects again! I’ll walk you through everything you need to know to animate your icons. Or, jump into animation by downloading my icons. This class has recently been completely rerecorded!

Whether you're an illustrator looking to add motion to your work, a graphic designer wanting to expand your skillset, or a YouTuber wanting to incorporate animation into your videos – you’ll finish this series with a complete animated project you can be proud of.

🤫 Sneak Peak

I’m planning a series of YouTube tutorials that I’m thinking of calling “how I animated this”. The idea is to show you the behind-the-scenes of animations I’ve made, for work or personal projects, or just show how to animate cool stuff!

​📥 New Suggestion Box​

If you have any requests of what you’d like to learn, whether it’s in Adobe Illustrator or After Effects, I’ve created a new suggestion box.

⚡ Quick Tip

If you’ve ever tried to animate the opacity of a composition that contains multiple layers, you’ve probably run into this issue where you can see through each layer in the comp:

This happens when the composition is continuously rasterized (meaning that the vector graphics stay sharp even if scaled up). In order to keep the composition continuously rasterized and animate the opacity without seeing through each layer, here’s a solution:

• Don’t animate/adjust the opacity property on the composition.
• Instead, find the Transform effect (in the Effects & Presets panel) and apply that to the composition.
• Animate or adjust the opacity property within the Transform effect.

👉 Random Recommendation

If you’re in the Northern Hemisphere, I hope you’re enjoying all the spring flowers popping up as much as I am! 🌷

If you’re thinking of planting flowers, consider choosing natives that will better support local pollinators, insects, birds, and other wildlife. The Native Plant Finder website makes it easy to find plants for your area (I think it’s currently US only).

You can learn more about the importance of planting native plants in Doug Tallamy’s books or on Homegrown National Park’s website.

I have no affiliations here, but I think it’s so important for each of us to do what we can to support biodiversity!

Megan Friesth

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