School of Motion
Hardcore Animation Training for Motion Designers.
Learn to solve problems visually.
Design Bootcamp is an accelerated online program that gets you up to speed with the principles and practices of modern Designers working in the field of Motion Design.
Design principles in the context of real-world jobs.
This course is designed to be PRACTICAL. Each lesson covers basic design principles in the context of real-world jobs. You’ll learn the fundamentals of design and you’ll also see how those fundamentals get used in real projects.
You'll sit over the shoulder of a master as he creates stunning designs from scratch while giving you insights into his thought process as he works. You’ll not only learn what Hierarchy means, but you’ll see it used right before your eyes in the creation of amazing and well-thought out imagery.
What will you learn in Design Bootcamp?
Working with Clients
How to approach client briefs from concept to final Design Boards.
Pitching Ideas
How to pitch Ideas and Art Directions to a client.
Composition and Color
The art of composing beautiful images, and using color properly.
Mastering the Tools
A million and one Photoshop and Illustrator tricks.
Consistency
How to create sets of boards that work together as a unit, not just as individual frames.
Design Thinking
Most importantly, how to think like a Designer.
Mike Frederick
Course Instructor
Your fearless leader on this journey is Mike Frederick, Emmy-Award winning Designer & Art Director who has been working in the field of Motion Design for over 20 years. His roster of advertising and broadcast clients is massive. Below are just a few.
Mike's Clients Include:
Course Format
You’re not in this alone
Going through a School of Motion Bootcamp is a one-of-a-kind experience. You’ll be hanging out (virtually, of course) with a group of other aspiring Designers in a private Facebook Group. You’ll be inspired, encouraged, and even critiqued by your fellow students and TA’s.
You’ll have support and a large group of new friends to commiserate with, but you’ll also benefit from looking at tons of work. As a Designer, you’re paid to have good taste, and being exposed to hundreds of ideas and boards from your colleagues will get your Design-Eye sharpened in record time.
Laser-Focused Feedback
You’ll be assigned a Teaching Assistant who will provide critique on every single project you turn in during Bootcamp. These critiques are on-point, personalized, and ACTIONABLE. Our amazing staff of TA’s will kick your butt, encourage you, and help you see the areas of your designs that need a little love.
You receive extremely thorough feedback, with drawings directly on top of the images and comments about exactly what you need to work on. Good critique can accelerate your growth IMMENSELY.
Stock Imagery Hookup
We want you to have the experience of exploring, choosing, and utilizing professional stock images in your boards, so our buddies at Shutterstock have stepped up to give every Design Bootcamp student an amazing gift:
Every student receives access to a pool of images to use on your Bootcamp exercises. You are allowed to show off your work post-bootcamp (with proper credits) , so your portfolio can showcase work that features the same high-quality images that the pros use.
The Woodshed
Each Wednesday, a one-hour episode of “The Woodshed” airs. You’ll get to see featured work critiqued by your TA’s, as well as deep-dives into the topics you’ve been learning about. We open up projects and show you how to fix common issues, tweak designs to get a better result, and other workflow tips.
Go even deeper into the Design rabbit-hole every Wednesday!
Access hundreds of Project Files
With every student completing the same assignments, you’ll see a TON of different takes on the same exercise. If you see something you like (or don’t know how to pull off) you can download any students’ project files via the Homework Locker.
This is an opportunity that you won’t get in any other setting, take full advantage of it!
Bootcamp Schedule
Orientation Week
Get comfy with the Bootcamp format, meet your classmates, and jump right into design with an exercise that will test your abilities right out of the gate. Let's see what you're starting with.
Project 01: Dancing for Dollars
A major network has asked you to design a show open for a hot new series they're producing. You'll learn about Typography, Hierarchy, and basic color and composition tricks to build your first set of boards.
Project 02: Spacing Out
NASA called… they need you to help out on a promo they've edited. Get a handle on Value Structure and learn how to create techy graphic elements to use on your style-frames and storyboards for a promo that takes the viewer to the Red Planet.
Catchup Week: Artsy Fartsy
By now you’re feeling the burn. Take a week to catch up on your work, and take a dip into the world of Art History. What, did you think this would all be fun and games?
Project 03: Directing Art
Dig into Branding, Art Direction, Mood Boards, and learn how to come up with ideas in the first place. Design starts way before you've ever opened up Illustrator or Photoshop.
Project 04: The Rock Show
Sometimes major lifestyle brands throw huge concerts, and this time you're on deck to design a spot to promote one of these festivals. Do brand research and try to nail a specific vibe and style. We'll also show you how to design to a grid for this project.
Project 05: Oh, the Horror!
A film director needs some scary, grungy titles for a new horror film he's just finished. You'll hone your Photoshop skills as you learn to incorporate massive amounts of texture and mood into your boards.
Project 06: Explain Me This
You'll learn concepts like Balance, Tension, and Visual Language as you tackle an explainer video for a new brand. Your vector skills will get a workout and you'll be creating a set of boards from scratch. Better think up a good idea!
Catchup Week: Career Talk
Catch your breath, finish any outstanding assignments, and learn about the business side of being a Designer in the MoGraph field. How are these new design skills going to help you in your career? Find out in this catchup week.
Project 07: A New Dimension
It's almost mandatory these days to know a little 3D. Luckily, we've got you covered. We'll give you crash-course in using the free Cinema 4D Lite which ships with Adobe CC, and then we'll show you how to incorporate 3D into your designs in a slick, adjustable way.
Project 08: Big Kahuna
This project is a doozy... a major corporation needs a full set of boards for an explainer video, and you got the call. Luckily, we've enlisted the help of a word-class illustrator to provide some assets to get you started on your journey. You'll use every skill you've learned to complete this project.
Final Boss
This project is to be completed on your own time, after you've survived bootcamp. Your task is to take the elements the client has provided along with their style guide to create a set of boards for a :30 spot promoting their brand. It's a real-life design challenge, and yours to include in your portfolio once you finish.
Extended Critique
We know our courses are tough and fast-paced, so we give you extra weeks of critique-time at the end of the course to turn in work that needed a little extra time, or to submit revised versions of work for extra critique.
And once you’ve reached the end?
At the end of Bootcamp you are inducted into the Alumni Facebook Group where you can post your final projects, meet students from previous sessions, and continue to keep in touch with your new compadres. The networking that takes place in this group is priceless, and many students have gotten freelance work from the connections they’ve made in this course.
Design Bootcamp Alumni Testimonials
Mike’s lessons had an immediate effect. Even after the first couple of weeks, my designs were hugely improved. The simple act of watching Mike work in real-time, explaining the fundamentals as he went along really changed the way I looked at Motion Design. I didn’t know what I didn’t know. Six weeks of Design Bootcamp accomplished more than the last six years of trial and error on my own.
As a student who went through a design program, Design Bootcamp reinvigorates your mind and inspires you to just create better work. It takes the main parts of the first 2 years of any design college program, and simulates real-world assignments, so you actually have something to show in your portfolio at the end, not just a bunch of figure-ground studies.
This course really pushed me to think harder and better, to organise my thoughts and ideas, and not just in terms of composition and colours but also in trying to infuse another layer of understanding in to my work. Not just pretty frames right? After a few weeks I felt it started to get easier to organize my thoughts and ideas, put them on paper, sketch things to see if it could work, then jump into Photoshop.
When I first started, I was more concerned with making “good looking” boards. By the end, I really paid attention to composition and whether or not I was getting the “story” across to the viewer. There is so much great info and it has really made me a better designer.
What's included with the course?
Design Bootcamp is packed with real-world Design lessons and content. You'll receive a heavy dose of knowledge in this course.
The Design Bootcamp program contains
- Over 30 hours of video instruction.
- Custom client briefs and assets.
- Exercises & Project files for every lesson.
- Interviews with amazing designers.
- Private class podcast covering tons of topics.
- In-depth PDFs to support your design-learning.
- Personalized critiques on your work from TA's.
- A private Facebook Group for Bootcamp students ONLY.
- Weekly episodes of The Woodshed.
- 100’s of your fellow students’ Project Files to dig through.
- Extra critique time and catch-up weeks.