Inside Shillington's Motion for Graphic Designers course.

Motion design has become an essential skill for graphic designers, bridging the gap between static visuals and dynamic storytelling. But how do you learn it in a way that’s structured, industry-relevant, and practical?

In this blog, Jack Trotman (Managing Director) sits down with John Palowski (Director of Curriculum) and Ed Baptist (Motion Teacher) to discuss the creation of Shillington’s Motion for Graphic Designers course. Co-designed by John, this course was built to give designers a clear, hands-on approach to mastering motion—without getting lost in endless online tutorials.

From the thought process behind the curriculum to the real-world skills students gain, this conversation dives deep into what makes Shillington’s motion course a game-changer for graphic designers looking to level up.

Jack Trotman:

Welcome guys! I'm going to ask you about what this course is all about, the foundations, the learning journey, the community side of things, the results, and also the things that someone might need to consider before signing up. Being a co-creator of the course, John, what gap in the industry does this course actually aim to fill?

John Palowski:

The reason we created this course and the gap that we were trying to fill in industry was that there wasn't any particular motion courses directly targeted towards graphic designers. It was trying to shift people into a completely separate vocation entirely (Motion design). At Shillington, we saw an opportunity because of the ever-changing landscape of the skills required by a graphic designer that the industry were looking for. So what we did is we created a course that filled that void. We’ve tailored it towards the needs that a graphic designer would require to upskill and tackle the projects in their portfolio, to give them a lift to show clients, employers and studios that they've got that capability in motion design as well as graphic design.

JT:

If someone's doing this course, are you saying that becoming a motion designer isn't the outcome?

JP:

They certainly could be on the pathway to becoming a motion designer—they’ll pick up a lot of skills in Adobe After Effects. We'll be teaching that from the ground up, so there is a huge trajectory towards that path. But in terms of a fully formed, well-rounded motion designer—there's still a long way to go in that journey. What we will ensure is that the students who leave the course have proficient skills in After Effects, and a solid process of motion thinking. They’ll understand that motion is not an afterthought. Instead, it's something that should be integral when starting any kind of project from the very off.

We purposely decided not to teach this on our graphic design course for the reason that is gets a little bit too deep because the possibilities in After Effects are pretty much endless.

JT:

That's what makes it exciting, isn't it? The endless possibilities. Ed, have you seen a lot of the conversation online of graphic designers who are scared about all these required skills like motion in job ads? How do you feel about that?

Ed Baptist:

Yeah, I think that it's always been the case that many job ads want a junior designer with 20 years experience that can code and animate and illustrate and design. That's always been the case that jobs want to ask more than is humanly possible of any individual. So the beauty of this is course is that it gives people that come and study with us the level of confidence to go for something they may otherwise have felt was completely out of their remit.

JT:

When you were developing the course, did you explore any of the alternatives softwares like Cavalry instead of After Effects? Was there any temptation to try to include some of those?

JP:

The temptation was certainly there, because it's always nice to jump on a new tool to see if it's going to be the latest, greatest thing. Although they have certainly a part to play, they're definitely kind of a side add-on to the main product being After Effects.

We have one student currently who is fluent in Cavalry, but has decided that now is the time to learn After Effects because it's holding them back a little bit. And in terms of the comparisons, it's really interesting because there are some things you can do in Cavalry and other apps that are a lot easier than the process you have to work through in After Effects. But then it's not robust enough to actually then deliver on absolutely everything.

JT:

We've touched on career opportunities that motion design can bring. I'm also quite interested in just talking about the types of clients that you could work with?

EB:

Yeah, Motion Design really expands a designer's career possibilities, that's what this course is designed to do. It's actually called Motion for Graphic Designers because it's quite specifically aimed at graphic designers. All of the principles, tools and what you learn through Graphic Design are super relevant when you start to make things move. So it's not like a complete other world, it's just a new skill set that you're gonna be adding to.

The outputs now—everybody needs a LinkedIn post, everybody's got multiple social platforms, so you're gonna be needing to create output that moves. So it makes sense to feel confident that you can do that because you're just making the beautiful design that you've done static actually move.

The other side of it in terms of your career is that if you then need to commission people that work in motion, you understand what you're asking people to do. So it's not a hidden dark art now. It's something that you understand—the principles and processes, how it aligns with Graphic Design. You understand the workflow and the process that's needed as well as the time, if you're paying a freelancer, that it takes to do those roles. So I think it's super valid.

Even if you don't end up going that way and you progress as a Senior and then Creative Director— you've got a really strong understanding of what that world is. You're not just passing it down the road for somebody else to solve and you're a little bit blind to the process. We think it's really valuable to understand.

JT:

Thinking about a studio or business owner, do you recommend this course as an opportunity to upskill their team? And what sort of benefits could you see from that?

JP:

We've already seen that—we've got students on our course at the minute who are both from the same business because the business saw an opportunity to sponsor their employees. It's better to have multiple employees at once doing the same course as you're all then on the same level of education.

I think that's the step that businesses are looking to do because otherwise you’ll get left behind very quickly.

It makes financial sense to actually have somebody in-house to actually do this course—upskilling somebody within your team who knows the business already and understands the needs of the business is a really good way to go about it.

JT:

Is the course really heavily skills based then?

EB:

This course has a balance because there are two things that you need:

Number one is the technical skills to be able to get the assets to do what you want them to do.

And then number two is then aligning that with your great ideas and creative storytelling.

That's your role as a designer. The course is split. We start off with fundamentals, opening up After Effects, which is one of the more complicated programs to look at. So we spend some time there—’what on earth am I looking at? What are the fundamentals? What do need to do to make this move?’

As we get towards the end of the course, we'll then really look at the work and start to think about aspects like what the brand values are here? How does motion add to this? How does it help to tell the story?

We get students to look at their own portfolio piece and think about how do they bring that to life? Not just how they make it move, how do the values then translate into motion—so it's really practical.

JT:

Could you describe a of typical lesson? Can you give me an example of how you demystify something and make it digestible?

JP:

Well, there aren't any typical lessons in all fairness because each topic really varies.

Let me skip ahead to lesson three. Students have had a homework task from the first week so they've already been working on a few things, just honing on a few of the skills learned in the first week. The start of lesson three then is a bit of a roundup of how students have actually attempted the homework task. That's all submitted via Figma and the students give us access to their After Effects files. And as teachers, we divide and conquer. First we do a roundup of any highlight moments or if there are any common struggles so we can provide a critique on that—we open up the files to show where things may have gone wrong or really right. Then there's some check-in points to make sure that the students understand the material before going into the next section of material which can provide bit of context through a lecture (we say lecture, but it's more like a group discussion where we encourage students to chip in throughout). And then what happens is we normally do a follow along demo on a particular new skill, which is all totally live. So for example, we could be introducing curve graphs in After Effects which is then followed by an exercise where students can put into practice what they’ve just learnt in the demo. So you’re working together and then the students can practice the techniques they’ve just learned. So it's cementing learning in a quick step.

If a students are struggling, they share their screen so everybody can see as well, which is great. We learn from each other.

Our trusted Shillington formula helps to demystify a tricky subject, breaking it down into something really simple and relatable.

JT: So is it all taught live?

EB:

We send out the information ahead of class so everyone can familiarise themselves with what's going to be taught that class. There's also videos which they have access to, which is great because everybody learns differently. Some students can hear something live first time, pick it up and understand exactly what you're saying. Other people need to just hit rewind, watch it again, hit rewind again until they feel comfortable.

All of that is available for the students to pick up and do outside of the course hours. And then in course time—it’s all live.

JT:

So Ed, what's your favourite part of the course that you've taught so far?

EB:

On a soft skills side—what I love is seeing the students get braver, sharing more and more work and then helping each other out. That's fantastic, because its the unknown essence of every class. It's how dynamic that's going to be, how much people are helping each other out, how much somebody that's grasped something raises the bar for the whole class.

JT:

Sounds very exciting! Can you explain then how briefs and exercises work? Are they always the same sort of length?

JP:

Some exercises are very short because it's a skill that we want students to repeat by themselves, but it's only a small skill, but still it's a really relevant skill. Some of the exercises can be a little bit longer.

One of the latter exercises that we do in the course, where they learn about the type animator tools, is complicated. You'd think that type animator would be easy, given that everybody loves type and you see a lot of animated type, but it's pretty tricky stuff. It's kind of like an exercise / brief where the results of both then lend themselves to answering a brief. It's a title sequence for a make-believe TV series—a film noir set in the 1970s. So first of all, they've got to read the brief and read the synopsis of what the program's about. And then the first task is using the new skills that they've learnt in the type animator tool to create the opening title sequence and a couple of the credits as well—get a styling right for those two things.

JT:

When do you start to see students applying this learning to their own work? Do you ever have students who are starting to apply it to actual clients as they’re learning?

EB:

Yeah has quite a few times actually—there'll be little tools and tips that people will learn that they've instantly applied to a bit of client work and they've shared that during the week as well so that's been great to hear. Some people are already in that world especially those that run their own practice. So they’re very keen to pick up and use those skills straight away.

In terms of when they start to look at their own projects—that's in the latter parts of the course, so they have something they can come out with at the end. This is based on work that they've already done that already exists but brought to life using all of those skills that have been taught to whatever degree they want to take it to. So it can be a long or short as it needs to be it could be broken down into more of a case study or it could be as a showreel, or it could just be almost like a bento box of some of their assets brought to life.

JT:

If you think about a student in week one versus week 12, what kind of mindset do you need to be in when you start this course? What's an ideal week one student?

JP:

Somebody who's willing to learn. We have some students who have just completed their graphic design studies, either with Shillington or elsewhere, and they're still in that learning mode and they say—let's do this as well.

But some people might not have been in education for some time. We're getting some people who are returning to education after a decade or so. And they're at a point where they're thinking that they’ve been a graphic designer, a freelancer, worked in studios, they have clients and have maybe been doing that for a while. Then they see the value of doing motion design and there's an excitement factor.

I'm quoting Ed here actually, "if you’re going to fail, failt fast because then you just make mistakes and you learn from them quickly". It’s technical, it’s a brand new skill, a brand new terminology and landscape for many.

JT:

How does the feedback work? Does it solely come from teachers? Is there a structure to it?

JP:

Feedback is structured throughout the process. We encourage students to send across their project files for their teachers to review their motion work. It’s important to understand the technical aspects behind the final result, seeing both the finished work and the process is essential.

We also conduct regular homework roundups, which are crucial for reinforcing learning. Feedback is provided through Figma, where we leave direct comments on submitted work, or via Loom, where we record feedback videos for students to review at their own pace.

This feedback isn’t just for individual students—it’s accessible to everyone. If students have time, they can review feedback given to their peers, fostering continuous learning. Sometimes, it’s difficult to process feedback on your own work because you're too close to it. However, seeing feedback on someone else’s work can create those "aha" moments that deepen understanding.

Importantly, feedback doesn’t just come from us as teachers. One of the best aspects of the community we build is that students actively provide feedback to each other. Whether in live classes, breakout rooms, or discussions about homework, they enjoy collaborating and learning together.

There's a lot of sharing happening, with plenty of thoughtful comments and valuable critical feedback, which is fantastic. Some students seem to be constantly at their computers, always engaged. They haven’t been assigned by us to take on a helper role, yet they naturally step up, offering as much support as possible. It's phenomenal to know that a student can log on at any time, leave something on there and it will get answered quite quickly. It's a byproduct of what we've created but then we try to foster that as much as possible.

JT: The car analogy is a great one. I remember our Lead Graphic Design Teacher Dan once responding to a student who kept asking endless “why” questions about Photoshop—how things worked and why they functioned a certain way.

Dan asked, "Can you drive a car?" The student replied, "Yeah, I can drive."

"Do you know how the engine works?"

"Not really."

"Could you name all the parts under the hood?"

"No, I couldn’t."

Dan then said, "And that’s fine! You can still drive the car. There’s a whole world of technical details you could dive into, but what really matters is how you use it. Think about your goal—you're just getting from A to B."

It’s such a great analogy, and I think it really puts things into perspective.

JT:

I'm really interested in the community aspect as well, particularly where your students are studying from. Since the course is currently available in just one time zone, where do your students typically come from?

EB:

Yeah, it's been quite surprising to see where the students have come from. We only offer the course in one time zone (UK) at the moment, but we've had people tuning in from Australia and Southeast Asia. We have teachers that teach based in New York, so they're on a different time zone as well, and then folk in the UK, in mainland Europe USA & Canada too!

At the moment, some of those people have their own practices, so they're a lot more flexible. Some people manage to make their work around it and sometimes have to dash off at the end of a lesson for a client call. So people are kind of making it work at the moment with these timeframes. So really surprising, if people want to do it, they'll make a way to do it.

JT:

How long is the lesson?

EB:

We run from 6.30pm to 9.30pm GMT/BST on Tuesdays & Wednesdays, so it's a three hour stretch with a break for you to sort of stretch your legs and have a cuppa in the middle of it.

JT:

If you were to say to anyone who was on the fence at the moment whether or not the course is right for them, what would you say to them?

EB:

From my previous experience, I sent a junior on an After Effects course. It was a two day course and she learned to make a skydiver rotate a really bad cut out like PNG of a skydiver fall through the sky and a bit of text appear. So there's no practical use for that. It doesn't use any of the skills that you would use as a graphic designer. And that was a two day course.

JT:

Do you remember how much it cost?

EB:

I think it was maybe like seven or 800 pounds for a two day course, intro to After Effects. So that really didn't help her with what I needed her to do on a day to day after that. So she could easily jumped into Canva and used a preset and it wouldn't have cost me to do that. What I think Shillington’s course does really well is it gives you a level of confidence with the program that you can then go away and learn to whatever degree that you want. It gives you enough to feel confident in using the program. And then it's up to you on how you're going to again add your flourish to it and figure out how it works in your career—or whether that's going to be your career focus. It's up to you. But I think what Shillington does, both in the graphic design course and in the motion course, is it gives you a level of confidence that I can learn this. This thing I didn't know 12 weeks ago—well I'm now proficient enough to produce some really polished work. And I think that's a super, super valuable thing.

JT:

Sorry, I've got one more question because you did talk about alternative ways of learning. Can't I just learn all this on YouTube?

JP:

Great question. Just this week, someone mentioned that they had been trying to learn new skills through YouTube. While they found some success, the problem was that they were only learning isolated skills. Since it was up to them to connect the pieces, there were inevitable gaps in their understanding.

What we’ve done is different—we haven’t just thrown together a collection of YouTube-style tutorials. Instead, we’ve created a structured learning experience with a clear, cohesive progression.

I co-created this course with Jack Seymour, an experienced motion designer. It took us about two months of focused planning to determine exactly what to teach and what to leave out. Drawing from my experience in course development, I wanted to ensure that every single topic covered was truly essential.

The goal was to equip students with the most valuable tools and skills they would use regularly in the field—not just once in a while.

In fact, during our planning, I asked Jack how often he used a particular skill, and he admitted, "Honestly, I haven’t needed it in six or seven years." That was a clear indicator—if an industry professional hadn’t used it in that long, why include it in a short, intensive 12 week course at Shillington?