Copy. Edit. Proof.

Squee! I Can Make Animated GIFs! 28 January 2013

Look at that! Stuff moves! It’s cool!

Seriously, though, I realize that everyone in the universe except for me can already make animated GIFs — there are enough of them out there to choke the internet, after all — but I’m a book designer and publisher: in my world, stuff stays still on the page.

Only… it doesn’t. E-book text reflows based on the e-reader’s screen and the requested font size, right? That’s movement. Plus, a fair chunk of what we publish is… online.

And today Jordan Ellinger pointed out to me that movement draws the eye. (I knew that; I just hadn’t thought about it in the context of animated ad banners.) Since I do up virtually all of our advertising and promotional material, I quickly realized that yes… this had to be figured out.

Turns out it was not difficult at all. All you need is Photoshop (I’ve got CS5.5). In case you too were with me in the Dark Ages of non-animation, here’s an excellent tutorial from Wired: http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Make_an_Animated_GIF (try the layer visibility method first, and then play with tweening once you’re comfortable).

So, do you like the speed my banner is animated at, or should I slow it down a little more?