[2024] How to Make an Animated Logo in After Effects

Adobe After Effects Animated Logo Tutorial

Whenever you're designing the branding elements for a project, the logo stands as the centerpiece, the visual representation of your brand's identity. But in today's digital age, static logos are often not enough. Animated logos capture attention, convey dynamism, and can tell a brand's story in a few seconds. The challenge? Creating a professional animated logo can seem daunting, especially if you're not a seasoned animator. Enter the solution: the Clean Multilayer Logo Pack for After Effects. This pack not only offers a plethora of predefined animations to kickstart your logo's transformation but also provides the flexibility to customize and make it uniquely yours.

In the steps that follow, we'll walk you through:

• Preparing your logo for animation
• Transitioning and setting up within After Effects
• Choosing and customizing your animation style
• Adjusting resolution and background settings
• Rendering and finalizing your animated masterpiece

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Preparing Your Logo in Illustrator or Photoshop

Step 1: Layer Separation
Before we even touch After Effects, we need to ensure our logo is ready. If you've got your logo in Photoshop or Illustrator, open it up. Now, look at your Layers panel. If you're unfamiliar, you can find this on the right side of your screen, labeled 'Layers'. Each part of your logo that you want to animate separately should be on its own layer. For instance, if you have a circle and a star in your logo and you want them to move independently, they should be on two different layers.

Step 2: Naming Layers
This might seem trivial, but trust me, it's a lifesaver. Rename each layer according to what element it represents. This way, when you're in the thick of animating in After Effects, you won't be scratching your head trying to figure out which layer is which. To rename, simply double-click on the layer name in the Layers panel and type away.

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Transitioning to After Effects

Step 3: Importing the Logo
Open After Effects. Navigate to the top menu and select 'File', then 'Import', and 'File' again. A dialog box will pop up. Locate your logo file and select it. Before you click 'Open', pay attention to a dropdown menu labeled 'Import As'. Here, choose 'Composition – Retain Layer Sizes'. This ensures that all those layers you meticulously separated and named come into After Effects just as they are.

Step 4: Accessing Your Layers
Once imported, look to the Project panel on the left. You'll see a folder with your logo's name. Click on it, and voila, all your layers are there, ready for animation.

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Let's Animate!

Step 5: Choosing Properties
Now, for the fun part. Click on one of your layers in the Timeline panel (located at the bottom). You'll notice a series of properties like 'Scale', 'Position', 'Rotation', and 'Opacity'. These are the basic properties you can animate. For our example, let's animate the 'Position'.

Step 6: Keyframing
With your layer selected, move your playhead (the blue line on the timeline) to where you want your animation to start. Next to 'Position', click on the stopwatch icon. This creates a keyframe, which is essentially a marker that tells After Effects, "Hey, start the animation here." Now, move your playhead to where you want the animation to end and simply drag your logo to its end position. After Effects will automatically create another keyframe.

Step 7: Previewing Your Animation
At the top of the Timeline panel, you'll see a 'Play' button. Click it. Watch as your logo moves from its starting position to its end position, just as you animated it.

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Adding Depth with Text Animation

Step 8: Text Layers
If your logo has text, we can animate that too. In your layers, find the text layer. If you can't edit the text directly in After Effects, no worries. Delete it, then use the 'Text' tool (located at the top, it looks like a 'T') to type it out again.

Step 9: Applying Text Animation
With your text layer selected, navigate to the Effects & Presets panel on the right. Type 'text' in the search bar. You'll see a plethora of text animations. For our example, let's choose 'Fade Up Words'. Drag and drop it onto your text layer. Now, when you play your animation, your text will fade up, word by word.

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Using the Clean Multilayer Logo Pack in After Effects

The Clean Multilayer Logo Pack is a versatile After Effects template pack that offers a stylish animation, perfect for giving your logos that professional touch. Let's dive into how to utilize this pack effectively.

Step 1: Accessing the Template
First, ensure you've downloaded the template from Envato Elements. Once downloaded, open After Effects and import the template file.

Step 2: Familiarize Yourself with the Template
This pack boasts 24 predefined animations. That's a lot of choices! Before diving into customization, play through some of the animations to see which one aligns with your vision. Remember, the goal is to make your logo stand out, so choose an animation that complements it.

Step 3: Inserting Your Logo
Navigate to the placeholder labeled 'Your Logo Here' or something similar. Replace this placeholder with your logo. Depending on the size and design of your logo, you might need to adjust its position or scale to ensure it fits perfectly within the animation frame.

Step 4: Customizing the Animation
The beauty of this pack is its flexibility. You're not limited to the 24 predefined animations. Using the template's settings, you can tweak various aspects of the animation to make it uniquely yours. Whether it's adjusting the speed, changing colors, or modifying transitions, the controls are intuitive and user-friendly.

Step 5: Adjusting Resolution
The template comes in a 4K resolution (3840x2160), which is fantastic for high-quality outputs. However, if your project doesn't require such a high resolution, you can easily downscale within After Effects. Navigate to 'Composition Settings', and adjust the width and height as needed.

Step 6: Background Choices
Depending on where you'll use this animated logo, you might want a transparent background. This pack offers a transparent background option, allowing for greater flexibility in integrating your animated logo with other media.

Step 7: Preview and Render
Always preview your animation before rendering. This ensures everything looks as envisioned. Once satisfied, proceed to render your project. In After Effects, navigate to 'Composition' and then 'Add to Render Queue'. Adjust your render settings as needed, and then click 'Render'.

Step 8: Final Touches
After rendering, play back the animation. Ensure everything flows smoothly. If there are any issues, return to After Effects, make the necessary adjustments, and render again.

Note: The template uses Universal Expression, which means it works with all languages of After Effects. This is especially handy if you're working in a non-English version of the software.