Two major portfolio projects. First half: The Motion Lexicon. Second half: a graduating Signature Project built around one professional motion design lane.
Follow the weekly project sequence below, bring your current progress and questions to the Wednesday 1 - 5 PM block, and complete a check-in every week.
The best way to truly learn a concept is to teach it to someone else. By building this Lexicon, you are proving to future employers that you don't just "use" these principles -- you own them. This film serves as a high-level proof of concept for your portfolio.
The full project overview, 10 principles checklist, inspiration gallery, and submission standards.
Plan your Hero Identity, Visual System, and the pedagogical action for each of the 10 principles.
Choose your professional lane and build the second-half portfolio project: Motion With a Purpose.
Each extra credit assignment is worth 5 extra points. These are separate from the weekly Capstone 2 breakdown and should be treated like small portfolio experiments.
Use Claude Code or ChatGPT Codex to build and deploy a custom portfolio site from your own work folder.
Build a marketplace-ready motion design portfolio site and a landscape demo reel under 2 minutes.
Create a stylized visual system that reacts to a specific song. The more reactive and intentional, the stronger the submission.
Build a short-form typography documentary inspired by Typefaces of Toronto: local signage, design details, and place-based storytelling.
Design a cozy animated loop with environmental motion, subtle character action, and a clear mood.
Define your Hero Shape or Character. Create your full storyboard and moodboard.
Lock your timing with a full animatic. Produce 10 hero frames proving visual direction.
Timing, Spacing, Eases, Mass, and Arcs. Dial in every movement using the Value Graph.
Mandatory accountability check. Turn in your project exactly as it exists right now.
Squash & Stretch, Overlapping Action, and Exaggeration. Layer in micro-animations and smears.
Polish and refine. Most keyframing should be done. Focus on finesse and secondary settles.
Final render, process archive, reflection writeup, and packaged source project.
Choose your lane, subject, audience, project brief, research, moodboards, written concept, script outline, and storyboard direction.
Finish storyboards, prove the visual system, test the motion language, and assemble the animatic.
Move from animatic into the meat of the project. Build real scenes and solve the hardest motion problems.
Submit the current project state for feedback, accountability, and production course correction.
Push the main piece toward rough completion while building the supporting assets that make it portfolio-ready.
Submit a full rough cut or near-final state. Identify what needs polish, simplification, or finishing.
Finish the motion, complete the supporting assets, and package the work as a graduating portfolio case study.
Final render, supporting assets, process archive, portfolio case study, and collected project folder.
Appeal is not a "Week 6" task. It is a global principle that must be baked into your design from Week 1. Whether your hero is a simple circle or a 3D rig, it must have charisma, clear silhouettes, and a magnetic personality.
Visual Language: Exploring the Disney 12 in Motion
Abstract Principles: Shape-based storytelling
UI Motion: Applying physics to interfaces
Masterclass: Motion Theory Breakdown
Package your project using AE's "Collect Files" feature before zipping. Upload rendered .MP4 separately from .ZIP.