Font Poem Animation Design Rationale

The font poem animation was somewhat difficult, but overall a very exciting computer skill to learn. In this design, I was hoping to achieve fluid movement with the appearance of each word. I tried to have each word appear on its own to demonstrate that every word in the poem was important. I made it so some appear faster than others to make it appear like how you'd read this poem. Some words such as "trade winds" appear faster that ones like "lines. Sail" because trade winds is in one sentence, and spoken faster. Lines and sail are the beginning and end of a sentence, so there is more of a break in between them. With the final collage at the end, I was hoping to create a beachy scene that demonstrates all the things people think of when they see "sail, bow, cast away" because that is what I imagined when I read the poem, and why the poem's words create a boat.


Some decisions I made in this project were the appearance of words, and the times they appeared on the page. "Away, Explore, Dream, Discover" are words that appear slowly because I wanted them to stand out more. "Explore dream discover" were three wrods that I wanted to be the most visual in the poem, so I had them slowly appear. I also chose to use flip flops, colored sunglasses and a child's sailboat as pictures in my collage because they remind me of adolescent years, which is what this poem reminded me of, also. Marc Twain's poem to "catch the trade winds in your sails" made me think of being a child, where anything is possible. This is why I playfully made some words slowly enter the page, and ended with some childhood pictures of summer.

Things I found challenging in this project were integrating the collage into the final frame and deciding which words should appear, when. It took me a while to figure out that the eye icon next to each layer should be switched on only if that layer should be included in a frame. After that, I figured out how to get the collage into the last layer, and not include it anywhere else.

I solved certain problems by simple trial and error. I tried many words appearing together, which I did not like, and certain words fading in and out, which I also did not like. It took multiple tries before I decided that only certain words should be fading into the frame because they stand out.

I am most proud of my design as a whole. I really do like the fact that my poem slowly creates the image of a boat, and then the final frame is all nautical themed items from a childhood summer. I am proud of the fact that my project has fluid movement, and that it all has a common theme of summertime and nautical.

If I had more time, I would have tried to either add more images to the collage, or attempt to make the collage the background of the font poem. Although I like my current background, it would involve much trial and error with colors and spacing to get the collage into the background, since multiple colors are used.