Stas Aki

Stas Aki is Readymag’s product designer.

He started out as a graphic designer

and later co-founded the

SILA project group.

stasaki.com

Web animation is a logical outgrowth of pre-internet media. The guiding stars of the 20th century were movies and television, and by the end of the century designers were deeply involved with animation in various formats—cartoons, cinema titles, commercials. As I see it, the chief thing that sets web animation apart is its interactiveness.

There are, in my opinion, two crucial moments in the history of web animation: the appearance of Macromedia Flash and the mass adoption of smartphones. The latter is of special interest. With touch-screen devices, the users interact with the interface with their fingers, a more natural kind of control than the manipulation with a cursor. Thus, with the help of animation, designers extend the normal actions and seamlessly transport the user from the real to the cyber world. Designers create virtual spaces that mirror the dynamics of the usual, physical world and, thus, they feel more natural. For example, when you open the panel with Wi-Fi settings in iPhone, the response happens at the speed of your finger moving across the screen. It is as easy as, and very much like, opening a drawer. What is more, you can stop the animation halfway to completion and reverse the action without taking your finger from the device. The latest web animations increasingly make it possible for the user to speed up or slow down, endowing digital elements with an imaginary weight.

Val Head

The Ins and Outs of Easing

dotCSS, 2016

I prefer cartoons with super-primitive graphics and limited color palettes, such as the work of the British artist Phil Malloy and David Lynch’s series of short films DumbLand. The deliberate stylistic asceticism of these works brings to the fore the animation component. By the way, Lynch made DumbLand with Flash and a mouse.

I like how Charles and Ray Eames used animation to show the entire universe, macro and micro, in their short film The Power of Ten.

Lately I often turn to work by the Wolff Olins agency—their Instagram includes many spot-on videos.

I love animated typographic posters. Among the many designers who are now experimenting in this field, I would single out the Swiss Studio Feixen.

Charles and Ray Eames

Powers of Ten, 1977

Phil Mulloy

Cowboys: High Noon, 1991

A film—especially when it's a personal film—
is going to hit somebody or it's not. There's nothing you can do about it. David Lynch

David Lynch

Dumbland, 2002