Imagine being able to transform boring, static images into dynamic animations that can grab attention, spark imagination and increase engagement! From TV intros and idents to social media ads, being able to create motion graphics is an important element of your creative digital skills toolkit. Get ready to unlock the power of motion as we create a movie title zoom sequence using Adobe After Effects. Beginners welcome!
The explainer series starts in a few days’ time and continues throughout October!
The Software
This month our series of video explainers uses Adobe After Effects, an application designed for creating all kinds of motion graphics:
After Effects is a PAID application. A FREE trial is available, after which ongoing use requires a subscription. For subscription pricing, see Adobe’s current pricing information. If you’ve never used After Effects, create a free account now, download the trial and be ready to follow along with this month’s explainers!
Examples of motion graphics
TV idents (like these classic idents from Channel 4 in the UK) are an example of motion graphics:
Animated movie and TV titles (like this example from the BBC series ‘Sherwood’) are motion graphics. This animated ‘Sherwood’ title is similar to what we’re going to create in our explainer series.
Entire animations, like this awesome animated photo-movie are motion graphics…
…and at pixels.cool we use After Effects to create the text animations at the start of every video explainer:
More motion graphics inspiration!
If you’re interested in the evolution of motion graphics, here’s Adobe’s introduction:
https://www.adobe.com/uk/creativecloud/animation/discover/motion-graphics.html
Best infographics explainer videos 2025:
https://www.yansmedia.com/blog/best-infographic-explainer-videos
More outstanding examples of motion graphics!
The movie trailer we’ll create in this series
Over the course of five explainers we’ll create the animated text sequence at the end of this trailer for our dystopian movie ‘Models: Sentient Shadow’
The five explainers in this series
- Tour the Adobe After Effects interface and create a new composition
- Animate text using built-in animation presets
- Animate text using keyframes and easy ease
- Add an expression to make a video flicker and animate a light flare
- Export the animated composition as an mp4 video
Notes and updates
There are no notes or advisories at this time. This page was last updated in October 2025.
We at pixels.cool are not responsible for the content of any external webpages or software downloaded from third party sites. Any links are included in good faith at the time of writing. All explainer content is compiled in good faith using processes and methods used by the team. Modern software provides users with many ways to accomplish a task, and for reasons of clarity we choose not to refer to multiple options. All computer users must run up to date virus / security software at all times to minimise risks of data loss.
