Trade Gothic Animated
In May 2014, I began a personal project experimenting with animating a few letters in Photoshop. What started as a simple animation test soon evolved into a growing collection — and eventually into a complete animated version of the Trade Gothic typeface.
Starting on June 12, 2014, I shared one animated letter per day on my website, continuing until July 7, 2014.
Design & Animation: Markus Feder
Music: Binboğanın Kızı by Barış Manço
Free Download
Feel free to download the animated typeface and have fun with it:
TradeGothic_animated.zip (10.3 MB)
Selected Recognitions
· Creative Bloq, Creative Review, Design is Kinky, IdN Onair
· Computer Arts 231, UK September 2014
Process
I began experimenting with the letter A. From there, the project quickly took on a life of its own, and I found myself continually drawing and exploring. To keep the momentum, I used a set of custom Photoshop actions that helped speed up and standardize my animation workflow.
For each letter, I started with a rough draft to test whether my initial animation idea worked as I imagined and to figure out the timing before working on to the final version.
The inspiration for the letters came from everywhere. I wanted each letter to move in its own way and have its own distinct personality. My goal was to make the animation feel playful and alive, with no two letters behaving quite the same.
Animated Gif Gallery
