I realise I’ve been posting a lot of videos lately, though I’ve been really interested in motion graphics and animation over the past few months. I’ve been gradually training myself in AfterEffects and Cinema4D, though the lack of a decent video camera has stopped me making the leap into full-on film. Perhaps I should create another blog to track video inspirations and keep them separate from my other design interests. In the meantime though, this is the impressive reel of design agency, DixonBaxi, who’ve worked with a great number of clients including Channel 4, Five, Motorola, MTV, Nokia, O2 and Sony.

I’m currently loving the work of Madrid-based motion design studio, Toch – especially the stunning opening titles for this year’s MadInSpain conference. The use of cutting-edge 3d visuals (complete with convincingly real textures and depth-of-field effects) is really nicely combined with interesting type work to give the animation a unique and original atmosphere. Other works in their portfolio include some really good 3D work for the likes of Channel Five, MTV, Ford and Antenna 3 TV.

This is the amazing teaser trailer, directed by Kevin Dart and Stéphane Coëdel for Fleet Street Scandal’s new Adventure story, Looks That Kill which will be released next month. The animation is a fantastic follow up to their trailer for the first book in the series, Seductive Espionage– the production of which was extensively featured in this interview with the creators on Artofthetitle.com.

Vanishing Point by Takuya Hosogane.

Animation done in Adobe AfterEffects and Maxon Cinema 4D.

Dot – a collaboration between advertising agency, Wieden + Kennedy’s London office and the ever-talented people at Aardman, this video was created to celebrate and showcase the amazing capabilities of the Nokia N8’s 12-Megapixel camera and Nokia’s new device the microscopic Cellscope.

The stop-motion animation was shot entirely on the new Nokia N8 with its Cellscope attachment and has won Aardman a Guinness World Record for the ‘Smallest Stop-motion Animated Character in a Film’, with the protagonist Dot measuring at a mere 9mm tall.

I love this video directed by London-based visual artist Quayola, whose work integrates computer-generated animation with video in an attempt to blend the real with the artificial, while simultaneously challenging the boundaries between art, design and filmmaking.

It is the third of a series of video installations commissioned for the 2009 Bordeaux Art&Architechture Biennale, based on the idea of combining digital animation with classical architecture. In his rationale for the work he states:

The term Strata defines a geological formation made of multiple layers of rock. Each one of these layers has its own individual characteristics and history, which combined produce beautiful and unique formations…
The Strata project consist in a series of films, prints and installations investigating improbable relationships between contemporary digital aesthetics and icons of classical art and architecture. Like in geological processes, layers belonging to different ages interact with one another producing new intriguing formations.

It’s certainly a very fresh way of looking at classical art, and I find the parallels he draws between the layers of art history and those of sedimentary rock very intriguing.

(found via graphism.fr – a very interesting blog for any french speakers out there)