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.