Connect the dots

Using Adobe Effects in my motion graphics class, I made a video graphic in the style of a sports collage to highlight Steve Job’s inspirational quote:

“You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.”

Initial StyleFrames

There were 3 initial art directions I wanted to go with:

concept 1: Desaturated Tone

Concept 2: Sports Collage

Concept 3: Minimal/Scientific

When I presented my ideas in class we were split between concept 2 and 3, and at the end I decided to go with concept 2. Concept 3 was also a good choice to go with since knowing Steve Jobs and the Apple company, minimalism and abstraction is definitely in their vision, but I wanted the quote to extend more into our lives and our successes and failures.

What Inspired Me

For the typography, I drew heavy inspiration from Nike's use of bold, impactful text to create a strong visual statement. When selecting colors, I focused on extremes—either desaturated or highly saturated tones—to achieve a striking, 'in-your-face' aesthetic. Additionally, I incorporated paper collage elements, inspired by the dynamic NBA edits I’ve seen on YouTube, and reinterpreted them to align with my own creative vision.

Technical Details: Serena Williams

For the Serena Williams clip I was able to use Adobe effect’s built in rotoscoping tool, which the footage was from a Gif I found online. Then creating multiple layers on top of each other I desaturated the footage and added a paper texture using blending modes. Finally the last layer was Serena Williams but in an oversaturated purple. For the text I simple added a glow effect.

Technical Details: 3D Layers

The easiest way for me to create the effect in the beginning was to seperate each image as a 3D layer. Then using a camera, I would animate the camera’s movement sort of creating this flip book kind of effect. For each photo of the tennis player, I simply took key moments of a video of the tennis serve and added some paper and dither effects using photoshop.

Technical Details: Photoshop

Besides the paper and dither effect, I also made this ink effect of the man falling using photoshop’s Threshold effect, which converts images into black and white images with high contrast. From there you can easily add a solid layer of color and play with the blending modes to get the effect you want.