What Degree Do You Need to Become a Motion Graphics Designer?

The received wisdom (as elaborated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics) is that the way to open the door to a career in motion graphics design is with a bachelor’s degree in animation, computer graphics or even fine art. These degrees are what HR personnel and their covens of evil application tracking system bots are going to be looking for, so, if your plans are to attend college and then begin life as a motion graphics designer, you can simplify matters by taking a degree in one of the above fields.

What is a Motion Graphics Designer?

Motion graphics shouldn’t be confused with character animation (such as you see in classic Disney movies.) Motion graphics are, rather, graphic design elements to which animators give the illusion of life. Although motion graphics existed before the 1950s, that decade is when the field came into its own, originally through the medium of animated main-title sequences for motion pictures.

The openings of Billy Wilder’s The Seven-Year Itch (1955) and Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest (1959) are prime examples of the groundbreaking sequences that set the tone for the movie to come. Both are the work of this type of animation’s key pioneer, Saul Bass. The two opening sequences combine kinetic typography, graphic devices, and drawn images. The result is opening credits that grab the audience’s attention. Bass’ tour de force was the six-minute end credit sequence for Michael Todd’s Around the World in Eighty Days (1956), which provides an entire synopsis of the movie in the form of kinetic sketches while the names of the actors with cameo roles in the film go by. It remains the ne plus ultra of end credits.

As far as the ne plus ultra of motion graphics at the start of a movie is concerned, the palm probably goes to the original Star Wars movie (recte: A New Hope.) The celebrated crawl that runs from the bottom of the screen to an imagined vanishing point in the middle of the screen was designed by Dan Perri, although the technique that held audiences spellbound for a minute and a half in 1977 actually dates back to the 1930s and both the Flash Gordon serials and Cecil B. De Mille’s Union Pacific, in which the disappearing crawl is superimposed on a pair of railway tracks.

In 1977, George Lucas had no choice but to lay the titles out on the floor and run the camera over them. With the subsequent advent of computer animation, such processes could be done virtually at the click of a mouse (and, in fact, the original Star Wars titles were redone using the new technology for later releases.) The ability to create computer-generated images with programs such as Adobe After Effects has completely transformed the motion graphics design industry. Creators now have a virtually unlimited toolbox at their disposal, and the days of awkwardly moving the camera to create the illusion of moving titles are long gone. Whereas the bounds of the possible were the problem faced by Motion Graphics Designers in the days of Saul Bass, the problem today is one of not doing too much and making sure the technology doesn’t become an end in itself. (A good example of doing an enormous amount with the available technology while still creating something satisfying and intelligible is the main title sequences for HBO’s Game of Thrones.)

Behind these little visual miracles sits the Motion Graphics Designer, who exists at the junction of graphic design and animation. To be good at this job, you need the graphic designer’s eye and sense of the visually attractive as well as the ability to operate the software software such as Adobe After Effects. The Motion Graphics Designer is responsible for both the vision and the execution, which are two very different processes, one that often requires traditional artists’ media, and one that calls for a computer. As a result, you’re unlikely to get bored being a Motion Graphics Designer.

Do I Need a Degree to Become a Motion Graphics Designer?

The basic educational requirement for a Motion Graphics Designer is a bachelor’s degree, generally in either computer graphics or art. Four years is the time between Olympiads or presidential elections, and it’s a long time, especially for young people. Your time spent in college should equip you with a wide spectrum of knowledge in more than just your area of specialization, but four years will also give you plenty of time to hone your computer graphics skills. That doesn't alter the reality that getting a four-year degree is definitely a leisurely way to make your entrée into the field of motion design.

A less leisurely approach would be to enroll in a certificate program that will concentrate on exactly the skills you’ll need to break into the motion graphics business. You won’t get the same kind of education you’d get if you were in a four-year degree program, but you will learn the baseline skills all Motion Graphics Designers must have. A large part of your energies will be expended learning the sine qua non of motion graphics programming, Adobe After Effects. You’ll learn other things, as well, but you won’t have to worry about writing five-page papers on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

Both routes have much to recommend them. If you can afford a four-year education without saddling yourself with debt for the rest of your life, there are ample good reasons for going to college. On the other hand, if college isn’t readily feasible (or the debt you’ll incur will put both a millstone and an albatross around your neck until your last day on Earth), the non-degree certificate program at a good professional school will make a great deal more sense. Time is also a factor: if you have four years which you can’t put to better use, again, college makes sense. If you’re in a hurry to join the workforce because you need money to indulge caprices such as food, clothing, and a roof over your head, on the other hand, college may not be for you.

In any event, you will need to have some kind of formal education in motion graphics if you’re to find a job in the field. Teaching yourself to use After Effects is very nice, but, without a diploma or a certificate to back up your claims of knowledge, your resume is not going to make it past the initial step in the application tracking system (ATS) that governs just about every HR department in the country.

Common Degrees for Motion Graphics Designers

The most frequently encountered undergraduate degrees for motion graphics designers are:

• A bachelor’s of science (BS) in computer graphics,
• A bachelor’s of arts (BA) or fine arts (BFA) in animation,
• A bachelor of arts or fine arts in art, or
• A bachelor of arts (or, again, a BFA) in graphic design.

Do note that if you get an art degree, you should get plenty of reps in making digital art. Learning to draw the old-fashioned way is very nice, but, if you want to make a career in some form of computer animation, you’re going to need to know how to create art on the computer and know how to bring it to life using (at the very least) After Effects.

While those are the most frequently encountered degrees for motion graphics designers, there are other options as well. You can even take a humanities degree, as long as you ensure that your coursework encompasses a secondary concentration in computer animation. Still, if you want to take the most uncomplicated route, take a degree in computer animation. You’ll be majoring in what will be the major focus of your career, and you’ll have the degree that HR staffers are going to be looking for when they take their infamously brief glances at your resume. There’s no question that being a round peg that will fit into an HR round hole is the best approach to getting hired. Square pegs run the risk of being eliminated by the bots that scan resumes and decide which ones get to be looked at by a human.

Tips for Starting a Motion Graphics Designer Career Without a Degree

To break into motion graphics design without a degree, the first thing you’re going to need is training. You can’t just show up with a portfolio of watercolors of your houseplants and expect to get hired for motion graphics design. You’re going to have to know how to use After Effects, and you’re going to need something to show that you know what you say you do. This is where a certificate from a certificate program comes into play: it’s basically your diploma and a necessary credential for establishing yourself and your design bona fides.

Can you make it if you’re self-taught? Stranger things have happened, and, regardless of whether you have a diploma, a certificate or just knowledge of the requisite software, you’re not going to get hired based on your credential alone. The all-important factor for getting hired in motion graphics design is your portfolio. That, more than anything else, shows that you know what you’re doing, and that you’re an artist of obvious talent. As you start out, you obviously won’t have real-life projects, but you will have the fruits of your labors while in school. If you’re an autodidact, you’ll only have projects you made up to show off, but the important part is that these be good. Regardless of whether or not you have a certificate, you should still work constantly on your portfolio, even if the projects are just of your own devising. One of them may be cool enough to grab the attention of someone looking to hire a motion graphics designer.

The other thing that you can do to help your cause as a non-degree candidate for a motion graphics job is to acquire experience in the field. Of course, you can’t get experience if you can’t get hired, and you can’t get hired if you can’t get experience, which leaves anyone trying to enter the workforce at a very frustrating impasse. One way around it is to find a non-paying internship that will let you practice your craft. You can also, even at this stage of your career, try to find freelance gigs that will at least give you practice working with real-world clients. These may be hard to find on freelancing sites, but, if you’ve got some hustle, you can, for example, approach local businesses and see what they’ll give in exchange for a dazzling motion graphic they can exhibit on their website. You may end up with your first clients, some invaluable experience, a real-world project in your portfolio, and free dry cleaning for a year.

Learn the Skills to Become a Motion Graphics Designer at Noble Desktop

If you’ve decided that you want to make a career designing motion graphics, you’re going to need training, most particularly in the program that’s going to sit at the heart of your professional labors, Adobe After Effects. Noble Desktop, a well-known design and IT school based in New York City, can help you to become a motion graphics designer without a degree. Noble can teach you what you need to know with its Motion Graphics Certificate program, which includes instruction in After Effects, its sister video editing program Premiere Pro, and the 3D modeling program Cinema 4D. You’ll also have ample time and support to devote to the development of your professional portfolio. There is an even more thorough option, the Video Editing and Motion Graphics Certificate program, which includes everything in the Motion Graphics Certificate program, but is augmented by classroom modules in Adobe Audition, Adobe Photoshop, and state-of-the-art instruction in AI for Video & Motion Graphics. (The AI class is available separately, too.)

Both certificate programs include a number of 1-to-1 sessions with an experienced mentor who can assist you with everything from classroom matters to laying down a battle plan for the job market. You’ll also get a free retake option, be able to consult recordings of every classroom session, and receive fully live and fully hands-on instruction that will have you learning by doing rather than just sitting there like a lump trying to make sense out of video tutorials. You’ll be the recipient of Noble Desktop’s proprietary classroom materials and workbooks, which will be yours to keep for future reference. You’ll also earn a New York State-licensed certificate for your labors at the end of the course, which you can exhibit on your all-important LinkedIn profile.