I asked Louis Wes if I could animate his "Don't Text & Skate" illustrations. Here are the two frames that he had designed.
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/796c87a9d447d72aff8ef7e54196059c/3bf94550-ec39-4c1d-9b7f-20ac446e0311_rw_1920.jpg?h=95374377c4a610f47d3e73ff2eda53ce)
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/796c87a9d447d72aff8ef7e54196059c/e36d69c8-5bb9-45a3-aa4f-ed6128ca1224_rw_1920.jpg?h=4fababf3acf004a8583f0c23fcac8f0e)
The animation process started with vectorizing the designs, which Louis had already done for the most part.
When the vector Illustrator files were ready, I imported them into After Effects as shape layers.
Then, I broke apart the designs into different chunks and put them on their own shape layers.
After that, I parented the layers to each other as needed, and roughed out the animation.
After that, I parented the layers to each other as needed, and roughed out the animation.
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/796c87a9d447d72aff8ef7e54196059c/434a0b60-e348-4f3a-87c0-af310b4d8a55_rw_1920.gif?h=e5771ea4685d6098a6eb384b0ca57fbb)
Once I was happy with the timing and spacing, I cleaned it up by animating the paths on the shape layers.
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/796c87a9d447d72aff8ef7e54196059c/0ab05290-07e4-445f-a163-d116aa212e40_rw_1920.gif?h=d2fbc04ce81204e1175cc8ab434d17a5)
In the end, Louis designed the "Don't Text & Skate" letters to add to the animation and looped in our sound designer, Ned.