Hyped about Hype
My first experience using Hype, how I used it to create an interactive infographic and more.
Before entering college, I took a class in high school where we learned how to animate using flash. I honestly thought it was the greatest thing ever, and really enjoyed making animations using that application. When I got into college and everyone said Flash was dead, I was a little bit offended. If Flash was dead, then my will to animate was also dead. Until… I learned about Hype.
In Digital Effects we started off the class looking at examples of animated typography, I was wowed by the complexity of some people’s work, and it got me hyped to start working on our own projects. As I began, I had tons of ideas, I knew I wanted to do a song of some kind and keep everything looking clean and simple. As I went out to look for a song, however, things got complicated. I was thinking about doing things that were way to complex for me as a beginner, I was thinking about things that I knew I could create in Flash. But Hype is not Flash. When the deadline to have an idea fleshed out came, I had scrapped at least two previous ideas before settling on creating animated typography for the song Handlebars by the Flobots.
At first I wasn’t too excited about the project because I didn’t have an idea that I fully loved, but as I began working it grew on me, and I ended up producing something that I am very proud of.
After creating a short segment of typography, we were assigned to create an interactive infographic that also related to or created a theme with the animated typography. I had a hard time figuring out what I wanted to do, and how to relate everything together. I had ideas about a map with hotspots relating to topics in the song, a bar graph idea with moving parts, and even a bicycle with information. I even sketched them out and created assets, but when I thought more about it, I really didn’t like the ideas. But nothing was coming to me, until Kanye.
I was looking on pinterest for some inspiration, (I often do this) I clicked on a link that brought me to a website (I can’t remember what it was for the life of me.) I was looking through the infographics there, and came across a stunning Kanye West one. It had a sketched out version of Kanye standing against a dark photo of himself, listing information about his albums and featured songs. It sparked my imagination, and lead me to creating my own infographic about the band members in the Flobots, using the same style Kanye was drawn in.
I created profiles for three members of the band, with a little information about each of them. A biography, their inspiration, (because obviously inspiration is important to me) and what they are known for musically. Along with the information I added in transition animations to make everything look more fluid and funner to watch.
After taking this class I have a new love for animation and digital effects, even if flash is dead. Hype is very easy to use, and exports easily as HTML which is usable everywhere and more accessible than any flash video. I plan to use hype more in the future and integrate it into different projects to add a flare, and grab people’s attention. It is an invaluable tool that I am grateful for be introduced to.
Side note: all of these illustrations were drawn by me. If you would like to see more of my illustration skills and artwork check out this article!
Brittany Keller is a student in the Digital Media program at Utah Valley University, Orem Utah, studying Interaction & Design. The following article relates to (Interactive Infographic) in the (DGM 2280 Course) and representative of the skills learned.
