The History of Motion Graphics

Book excerpt: Expand your knowledge of the aesthetics, forms and meaning of motion graphics as well as the long-running connections between the American avant-garde film, video art and TV commercials. In 1960 avant-garde animator and inventor John Whitney started a company called "Motion Graphics, Inc." to make animated titles and logos. His new company crystalized a relationship between avant-garde film and commercial broadcast design/film titles. Careful discussion of historical works puts them in context, allowing their reappearance in contemporary motion graphics clear. This book includes a thorough examination of the history of title design from the earliest films through the present, including Walter Anthony, Saul Bass, Maurice Binder, Pablo Ferro, Wayne Fitzgerald, Nina Saxon, and Kyle Cooper. This book also covers early abstract film (the Futurists Bruno Corra and Arnaldo Ginna, Leopold Survage, Walther Ruttmann, Viking Eggeling, Hans Richter, Oskar Fischinger, Mary Ellen Bute, Len Lye and Norman McLaren) and puts the work of visual music pioneers Mary Hallock-Greenewalt and Thomas Wilfred in context. The History of Motion Graphics is the essential textbook and general reference for understanding how and where the field of motion graphic design came from and where it's going.