Animation: Erik Nitsche Tribute

Erik Nitsche is a great designer who made beautiful works mostly in the 60’s. For a school project we had to choose a graphic designer and create an experience that showcases his work. For Erik Nitsche I made an animated website (prototype) that showcases his work for General Dynamics with an extra twist…

First things first…

I didn’t know about Erik Nitsche’s existence before I redid a course at my study. We had to choose a Graphic Designer and I just couldn’t think of one I hadn’t already seen so much of. So I picked up a catalogue full of designs and designers and picked a few that spoke to me.

So after I picked my designer I of course did a little research.

About Erik Nitsche

(September 7, 1908 – November 10, 1998) was a pioneer in the design of books, annual reports, and other printed material that relied on meticulous attention to the details of page composition, the elegance of simple type presentation, and the juxtaposition of elements on a page. His hallmarks were impeccably clear design, brilliant colors, smart typography, and an adherence to particular geometric foundations. — Wikipedia, 23/05/2022

And then I collected some work for visual research.

Experimenting

After I collected his work, I experimented with it. First I tried to recreate it. Then I took parts and created patterns and lastly I inflated some of these parts to see what it would look like.

Ideas

I came up with three different concepts for my webpage: Inflate, Duplicate and Movement.

My teacher suggested I make a combination between these concepts, and so I started sketching.

And testing my ideas in animation.

Eventually the time had come to finalize the project. And so I made a prototype in Figma.

And below a video of it all moving:

I was graded an 8 out of 10 for this project.