The Comeback Gif

What’s old — is better, now.

Never in my thirteen years of frame by frame artistry and pixel dancing would I ever think that something so annoying as the almighty compressed GIF, would be — dare I say it — beautiful. From the birth of the flashing “NEW” symbol to rainbow colored flashing stars, to even those amazingly ugly “under construction” symbols that were to anticipate something amazing was about to go live — the GIF in its present state has been reborn.

As technology races, it only makes sense that whatever falls in its way, changes with it. With lower platform support Flash is getting these days and the increase of mobile maniacs, it makes sense that new ways of animating for cross platform splendor evolve too. But an animated GIF? Yep. Turns out the GIF is actually gifted.

As various software packages communicate with each other, and knowing what they deliver is essentially part of a bigger family with shared blood — digital artists have found amazing ways to recapture frame by frame animation in a way never thought possible, considering bandwidth issues of the past. The internet has more muscle, more power, more experience in fueling motion art. The GIF knows it and finally has a second chance to prove what it can do — when the web and its pixels play nice together. Joy (flashing).