Happy August! In between work and taking time writing papers for my group projects, I am looking through friends’ photo albums. I have often taken pleasure in the simplicity and complexity of photographs. I have dabbled a little in front of and behind the lens and really do enjoy the understanding of both sides. Photographs are beautiful and often tell amazing stories from a single frame. More importantly, they are extremely effective when it is associated with marketing, advertising, or public relations. I, myself, am a visual learner and respond better to colors, designs and pictures or video rather than words. Now, that’s not to say that words are not expressive on their own! If we remember (long ago) probably around the time AOL Instant Messenger first came out as a free program, we were first introduced to the animated gif or emoticon. Smileys on Yahoo! Messenger were probably my favorite. I remember playing around with Graphic Converter to make my own simple gifs. Remember the glitter gifs people used to post all over MySpace? Or what about the Peanut Butter Jelly Time dancing banana? I could stare at it for an hour!

Same thing applies here. Broken down, it is more or less a video of frames of images, almost like a flipbook. The animated gif is widely used in media today, even in sports; whether it is showing a great double play from a great baseball game or Glenn “Big Baby” Davis making a goofy face after he hit a floater to bring the Celtics within one during Game 3 of the NBA Finals. (don’t ask me why or how I even remember that!)

I have recently stumbled upon this new version of an animated gif, using the same process (perhaps just a tad more complicated …) called the cinemagraph. It is exactly what you think, not quite a video, not quite a photograph. It is completely unique to what type gif I was used to seeing though the same idea.

Created by Jamie Beck and Kevin Burg, they have taken the animated gif to a new level. I would love to have something like this on the blog. It is almost creepy how realistic it is. Literally making the photograph capture an exact moment in time. A simple “Wow” factor like this can boost any Website or page. Even though this idea was formally developed within the last year or so, I’m looking forward to the future of cinemagraphs, specifically with sports, athletes and big businesses. It is also a much smaller file and loads quicker outside of having Flash or HTML5 loading on a Website. Definitely something to think about with graphic design!

You can find tutorials online if you search for them, and it is only a matter of time until an actual app or simple generated website is created specifically for cinemagraphs, much like gifsoup. I always enjoy little DIY ideas and doing it yourself or with a good friend.

Simple and elegant

Not to mention the satisfaction of a finished product you’ve worked hard on is always a good feeling! I’m definitely going to attempt to make one of these at some point. Here’s a few of my favorites from Jamie (http://fromme-toyou.tumblr.com) & Kevin’s (http://kevin.tumblr.com/) collaborative gifs where subtle motion images like wind are used:

A nice summer breeze

She's looking right at you

Overlooking the city

You can almost smell them. Delicious!

Caught up in the moment

A new type of visual is always exciting to learn about. Being fresh and creative in any industry is what sells any particular product or service. Be unique and inspire others! Have an idea for my next blog post? Shoot me an email!