Metaphors of motion and philosophies of process: A practitioner's perspective in contemporary motion design.

Contemporary motion design has become ubiquitous across all platforms of the modern media landscape, and yet even the term itself enjoys little cultural awareness and has attracted notably less scholarly attention. Like the motion graphics tradition out of which it evolved, it is an inherently hybrid practice that draws upon the histories and techniques of a broad spectrum of time-based media and, in spite of its unreservedly commercial aims, is both deeply rooted in and a concentrated distillation of experimental animation practices in particular. Drawing upon my own recent experience designing a motion sequence for a documentary feature film, this article explores the unique aesthetic qualities and metaphors of motion that characterize motion design, and ultimately seeks to define it as a distinct discipline in its own right. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]