tools. You can then move the playhead back and forth to see your animation work.

(Don’t accidentally press “done” like I always do) Always test your animated GIF after exporting to confirm the animation is smooth and free from any pixilation or color errors. Scene ThreeNext, the thumb will dip a second time and the puppet’s right elbow will “over bend” and bounce the puppet’s head around.

If anything is different you will see a jump in the animation. https://hacks.mozilla.org/2015/09/building-rtl-aware-web-apps-and-websites-part-1 In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to animate your icons using Adobe Photoshop. under: If multiple icons are in use on a web site, creating spritesheets out of the Note: Icons that include a question mark need to be mirrored in Arabic and Farsi, but not in Hebrew. If you do not want an icon to ever be mirrored, you need to explicitly set it to be forceLeftToRight. Languages such as Arabic and Hebrew are read from right-to-left (RTL).

When using the Vector Drawable, it may not be necessary to include the xxxhdpi The styles below make it easy to apply our recommended sizes, colors, and activity states. Converting “Vector Shape” layers into “Smart Object” layers allows animation of the “Transform” properties instead of the “Vector Mask Position.” You can still accomplish a lot without this step, but if you need to animate the rotation of a layer, you have to use the “Transform” properties. Resources inside such directories will only be used for RTL languages. Simple icons work best, but I also like to look for small details that already convey a sense of motion. In accordance with material design icon guidelines, for active icons we recommend using either black at 54% opacity or white at The sweet spot for .GIF files is 2–6 seconds, where the icon repeats or reverses the animation in a loop. No need for additional plugins like Flash or Silverlight, or libraries like jQuery or Snap.svg. An easy way to solve this is that when you are creating your very first keyframe to start at least a few frames into the animation. Now it’s time to export the file. Here is a list of icons that can be programmatically mirrored to RTL: drawable tinting available on Android Lollipop, Bidirectionality material design spec article, https://hacks.mozilla.org/2015/09/building-rtl-aware-web-apps-and-websites-part-1, https://hacks.mozilla.org/2015/10/building-rtl-aware-web-apps-websites-part-2. If your animation needs a transparent background, or other transparent parts, make sure that those options are selected before exporting.
their mockups or prototypes.

Animation offers a medium of story telling and visual entertainment which can bring pleasure and information to people of all ages everywhere in the world. ‍ PRO TIP: Thoughtfully group and name layers to save you time in the animating process. Flaticon, the largest database of free vector icons. We’re using Photoshop because it is one of the most commonly used design applications and relatively easy to use for those who are just starting to explore more complex design projects, like creating animated GIFs. Material icons also work well within iOS apps.

Experiment, take notes, and get friendly with the “Undo” command. To add the “twinkle” effect, I’ll lift the pinky finger slightly before the others. However, be mindful that the context in which the icon is placed also influences whether an icon should be mirrored or not. Icons should only be mirrored if their direction matches other UI elements in RTL mode.

Review your work often to see how your animation works throughout the process and make the necessary adjustments.

Repeat for all moving elements in your first storyboard frame.

The sweet spot for .GIF files is 2–6 seconds, where the icon repeats or reverses the animation in a loop.

If you’re using these animations for presentations, they can be a little bigger, but I often find that the 1Mb rule is a good standard to keep in place for all of your projects.


All you need to do is include a single line of HTML: Similar to other Google Web Fonts, the correct CSS will be served to activate the Ensuring readability and clarity at both large and small sizes, these icons Install the icons using the Bower package manager. By default, images' semantic content is set to unspecified. If your animation loops the final storyboard frame should end exactly where the first storyboard frame begins. By default on Android, icons are not mirrored when the layout direction is mirrored. (Tutorial on Frame Animation). Animaticon animated GIFs are designed to be colored, tinted, and tweaked to fit your style. images is recommended.

Our first scene starts with the three fingers lifting. The material icons are available from the git repository which contains the complete set of icons including all the various formats we To control the size of the icon, change the font-size: 30px property of your icon. If you prefer your background to be transparent, there may be some extra masking work you’ll have to do. You need to specifically mirror the appropriate icons when needed.

dragging them into Xcode on to the asset catalog or by copying the folder into Next, move the playhead to where you want that layer to stop animating. If mirroring the icons in code is not an option you can use ImageMagick to horizontally mirror the image. The easiest way to set up icon fonts for use in any web page is through Google Web Fonts. Use the Looping Options dropdown menu to select what your animation needs. This particular animation may be more complicated that what you try, but now that you have the basics, you can bring any icon to life. GIF files are great for small animations that will live on the web. For example, are you using this animation on social media or for a newsletter? web projects. Video Timeline, like Pixar, has each animated element modeled in software, then the movement is scripted and “programmed.” I’ve decided to use the more robust Video Timeline Mode so we can manipulate smoother movement and make easy changes later. Rotating the Pinky Layer (as shown above)From the initial resting position, move the Playhead to where this layer starts moving.

Scene FourThe last frame of the animation will have the hand relax and all of the pieces will settle into their original places, allowing for a seamless loop.

Each icon font has a codepoints index in our git repository showing the complete set of names and character codes (here). Skill Level: Intermediate. Grab the latest stable zip archive (~60MB) of all icons or the bleeding-edge version from master. Look for details that convey a sense of motion. Material Design offers two visually distinct types of progress indicators: linear and circular progress indicators. We have packaged all the material icons into a single font that takes advantage of the typographic rendering capabilities of modern browsers so that web developers can easily incorporate these icons with only a few lines of code.

In order to export as a .GIF file you must use the “Save for Web (Legacy)” dialog box. done automatically by the web browser and provides more readable code than the

Scene TwoAs the fingers stay extended, the thumb will dip quickly to move the puppet’s head. Visit the Tips & Tricks page to see how. Before you do anything else, make sure you have a saved .PSD version of your animation and make a backup.

images is recommended. Animation doesn’t have to look like the next blockbuster film to have impact. Once your layer is in its resting point for that movement, click the diamond to add a new keyframe at the playhead. You’ve animated an icon! These rules are normally served as part of the Google Since the fingers are directly connected to the puppet’s arms, when we move each finger we can anticipate how it will affect the puppet. Our animation purpose is to bring the animation process to life for this tutorial and to inspire future icon puppeteers. products. ‍ PRO TIP: From the Window > Workspaces menu, choose the Motion workspace and attach the Timeline panel to the bottom of the Photoshop window by dragging it all the way to the bottom until you see a blue bar. Add notes as you think of them and use this time to brainstorm what could make this animation truly great. For more information, refer to the documentation in the sprites directory of the git repository. Our downloads from It’s best to use the vector version (SVG or Vector PDF) of the icon so you can make edits more easily. These icons were designed to follow the material design guidelines and they look best when using the recommended icon sizes and colors. Backed by open-source code, Material streamlines collaboration between designers and developers, and helps teams quickly build beautiful products. After changing a setting, look at the File Size indicator in the bottom left. The icons are also available in the material design icons git repository in the same combination of colors and sizes named as follows: A density-independent VectorDrawable is provided which is supported from Next, animate layers to create each frame in your storyboard. You can design an icon from scratch, or select one from the millions available on Noun Project. It’s not like the computer magically does it for you. Notes read “twinkle” fingers and “Thumb dips twice”. A video may be too long and written words may not be illustrative enough. formats. I like to use the Film & Video tab to create the animation template file. Make sure you’re working in RGB Color since this will be viewed on a screen. Dimensions. I searched for “Animation” and “Puppet” icons on Noun Project, which lead me to this Puppet icon by Luis Prado. Otherwise, if you didn’t include a background layer, you can add the correct “Matte Color” that will be applied underneath your animation. of projects and platforms, for developers in their apps, and for designers in

‍ PRO TIP: Because Photoshop resets the reference point after each transformation, I like to choose a point it can snap to so I can easily remember and consistently align it.

the material icons library provide both single and double densities for each icon. Install the icons using npm package manager. If so, each of those channels will have unique considerations you’ll need to take into account for the final file’s resolution, dimensions, and more. Navigate to File > Export > Save for Web (Legacy).... Once it loads, change the file format to GIF from the dropdown. Colored, sized and positioned entirely with CSS.

Unlike other vector icon packs that have merely hundreds of icons, this icon pack contains 9,209 icons, all in the same style and quality. For my work, I’ve found animations should be less than 10 seconds, otherwise the .GIF file will be too large and unusable. I like to use white backgrounds for animating icons. code. Now that you’ve got a plan in place, go ahead and open up Photoshop.

Download now more than 27,763 icons of social media in SVG, PSD, PNG, EPS format or as webfonts. Scene OneThe movement will start with the hand, then into the strings, and finally to the puppet.