in this video I'll show you some common logo animation techniques and I'll point you in the right direction for where to learn more about any of these techniques and stick around until the end because I have a bonus tip to help you figure out how to animate your logo animation idea a quick disclaimer I'm going to be showing you examples that I didn't actually create so while I can make an educated guess for how they were animated I don't know for 100% sure one of the fun things about after effects is that there's usually multiple ways to a achieve similar results the first technique is trim paths trim paths allow you to animate lines and while it's a super simple concept the possibilities are endless trim paths can be used to animate text like it's being drawn in it works great for both sand serif and script lettering trim paths are also great for animating accent lines there are so many examples of logos that are animated with trim paths once you know what to look for you'll be able to spot them anytime there's a line drawing in there's a good chance it was animated using trim paths you can also animate dots or lines moving along a custom path using trim paths like in this example to animate with trim paths you'll need an after effect shape layer that has a stroke but no fill you may need to recreate parts of your logo to achieve this you can do this in After Effects but I find it's often easier to do an illustrator this is super important to getting the drawing in look and although it can be tedious it can't be skipped make sure each path or shape has a stroke and no fill the lines also need to have the same width throughout and you can't use brushes if that's an issue I have a tip for you in the next technique also it's best to have each path or shape that you want to animate in its own labeled layer if you used illustrator you'll need to import your logo into After Effects under import ads make sure to choose composition retain layer size then right click the vector layers and choose create create shapes from vector [Music] layer or use Overlord to streamline this process then toggle open one of the layers that's a path with only a stroke click the add button and choose trim paths now you can animate the trim path properties to make the line draw in if you want to reverse the direction of the path click this button [Music] you can animate dots moving across the screen and even give them a smear effect by using trim pass to do this you'll want the path for the dots to travel to be a shape layer with only a stroke the stroke weight should be the size of the dot set the Caps to round caps add trim paths and set the trim path end value to be a very small number like 0.1 to make a DOT now you can animate the offset value to move move the dot along the [Music] line you can also animate the start and end values and then offset their Motion in the graph Editor to create a smear effect I know that was fast but I cover it in more detail in this class in this example these dots are actually created using trim paths on a circle that way it was really easy to animate them spinning around in a Perfect Circle so these dots are actually a circle layer that has a stroke but no fill and there's actually two circles that are right on top of each other and one is just flipped 180° so that's why there's two dots so first to animate them coming out from the center I animated the size of the circle then to have these dots spin around I animated the offset and then here to give them a smear effect I animated the start and the end [Music] values and then if you're curious here when they become o's with a circle cut out from the middle I actually use separate layers and used mates to cut out that Circle so these cut out this Inner Circle obviously a lot of logos have text trim paths can be a great way to animate text but there are other options too check out this video and guide to learn more about animating text the next technique is to use mates mates allow you to control which parts of a layer are visible they allow you to crop intersect and exclude animated and overlapping shapes here's the basics on mats first choose which layer you want to crop I want to crop this full screen design so it's only visible within the text layer that says mats on the design layer I'll choose the text layer as the mat there are a couple different kinds of mates so check out this tutorial to learn more here are some examples of logos that likely use some kind of mat or mask in this example there's likely a circle that acts as a mat to crop out the ends of these [Music] lines here it looks like yellow circles followed by green circles fill in each letter so the letters act as a mat for the colored circles there's probably a hidden mat making the letters e v o not stick out to the left of the v as they move into place you can also combine trim pths and mats this way you can reveal shapes that aren't just a simple stroke with a consistent thickness throughout this can be helpful if you want to animate text drawing in but the width of the text isn't quite the same all the way around you can also use this technique to reveal lines that have a brush effect or Texture this example is from my class animated lettering another technique that can come in handy is to animate The Path property of a shape layer this way you have complete freedom to transform the shape in order to animate the path property you'll need an After Effects shape layer if you're working with Vector artwork from illustrator you can rightclick the layer and choose create create shapes from vector layer or if you want to animate the path of text you could rightclick a text layer and choose create create shapes from [Music] text if you have a parametric after effect shape like a circle rectangle polygon or star and you see something like rectangle path but not simply path you can convert the shape to a bezier shape to get the Path property to do this right click where it says rectangle or whatever shape path then choose convert to be path now you have a Path property that you can key frame here are some examples of logos that likely have the Path property animated I converted these letters into shapes and animated The Path property to create this smar effect in this logo animation the way the Cub head elongates could be done by animating the path of the shape the way that the shape expands could be created by animating The Path property of the shape when doing something like this it can be easier to animate backwards so you start with the final state of the shape and move to the left on the timeline to set earlier key frames the way that the letters expand could also be done by converting the text to shapes and animating the path properties check out this guide to learn more about working with shapes and after effects again you can combine different techniques for example you could animate the path of lines that draw in with trim pass to give them a more Dynamic look morphing shapes or icons can be a unique way to animate a logo here are some examples of logos that use morphing in this example the berry builds in by morphing shapes this example hints at what the brand does by animating morphing icons before revealing the logo this example follows a similar idea to explain what the brand is all [Music] about to learn more about creating morphing animations check out my class animating morphing icons and after effects now that we've gone over some common logo animation techniques I have to point out that the truth is a lot of logos are just animated simply by animating the standard transform properties but just key framing these properties isn't going to cut it for a logo animation with such a short animation it's important that every key frame is meticulously timed and adjusted you'll need to get into the graph Editor to adjust those motion curves if you're not sure how to go about this my class smooth moves is for you once you're comfortable with the graph editor the next step to leveling up your logo animations is to understand how to incorporate the principles of animation and that's exactly what I cover in my class bring a logo to life principles of animation for motion designers the goal of this class is is to guide you through the process of creating a professionall looking custom logo animation plus you'll come away from the class with a deeper understanding of how to utilize the principles of Animation to communicate ideas and emotions through movement in any motion design project find the class on animation exp.com or you can also watch it on skillshare and now for the bonus tip if you find a cool logo animation but you have no idea how it was created here's a simple but effective tip either download the video so you can scrub through it in slow motion or take a video of the video on your screen and put your phone in slow motion mode while you should never copy anyone else's work you can watch it in slow motion to try to get a better idea of what's going on this can help you figure out how they may have achieved a certain effect so you can create your own unique version of it again do not copy other people's work use this tip just to learn for more logo animation inspiration check out my Pinterest board and be sure to follow follow me as I'll keep pinning more as I create or find new logo animations links to all the resources I've mentioned are below this video thanks so much for watching and until next time happy [Music] animating