Gupta Media
Animating a creative agency logo
Team
Me!
Skills
Adobe Illustrator, After Effects
Role
Designer
Timeline
8 hours, Summer 2025
How The Heck Do You Animate a Triangle Elephant?
To express my strong interest in the Motion Designer role at GuptaMedia, I took the initiative to incorporate some motion into their logo. To challenge myself, I gave myself 8 hours–a full working day.
While keyframes are not new to me, having no prior experience in mammalian animation, I looked to the best teacher for advice- YouTube. There, I discovered DUIK Angela, a common AfterEffects plug-in used to animate characters.
DUIK Angela JumpstarT \ \ Complete Beginner's Guide - Jake in Motion
Realistic Elephant Walk Cycle - Mrinal Soni
Following the tutorial yielded interesting results. After exporting Adobe Illustrator files and rigging my elephant, the geometric nature of the elephant's legs and the elasticity of DUIK proved to be an incompatible match.
Pivoting, I leaned into the triangular elements of the trunk. Constructing a simple physical prototype helped visualize the motion I sought.
Animating the Head
"You should animate the head."
My sister
Following a moderate amount of rigging trials and tribulations, I slapped on a fun multi-gradient background and was ready to call my elephant a day. Upon showing it to my sister, however, she voiced the thought that I was highkey surpressing: the head was too static.
Back to the catacombs of AfterEffects it was!
*Insert elephant sound*
The Final Animation
Takeaways
"I'd hire you."
My boyfriend
A totally not biased take from my boyfriend. What initially was a fun prompt turned into a full-scale workshop on AfterEffects character animation. And even if a full-time job isn't in the cards, I hope at the very least you've taken something away from my case study, even if it's just the .mp4 file–I know I have.
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Designed with <3 by Olivia Wang