After Effects: Digital Assets
Theme: On-Screen Graphics / UI Design / Motion Tracking / Voiceover / Visual Storytelling
In this workshop we focused on creating digital on-screen graphics like the type you’d see in movies when a character is looking at a tracking system, scanner, drone interface, radar screen, or any kind of tech display. The whole session was about understanding how these assets are constructed and how they sit on top of real footage to create a believable visual world.
We worked in After Effects using a scene of a car driving through a jungle, almost like a safari situation. The aim was to design a digital interface that made it look like the car was being tracked in real time. We broke the process down into sections:
- Motion Tracking: making the interface follow the movement of the car
- UI Layering: building elements like boxes, grids, targets, outlines, and indicators
- Typography: selecting the right typefaces and styles to feel like an actual system
- Colour Coding: testing greens, blues, and neons to match UI conventions
- Voiceover: adding spoken lines that gave context to what the graphic was doing
- Blending Modes & Glow: making the graphic sit naturally inside the footage
What I found interesting was how even small design decisions like the thickness of a line or the softness of a glow completely changed how “real” or “fake” the interface looked.
This workshop was honestly really useful for me because I’ve always wanted to bring more 2D digital assets into my style. I like the idea of combining real footage or images with overlaid graphics that feel technical, cinematic or sci-fi. It’s a direction I can see fitting perfectly into my own design work like posters, cover art, merch campaigns and video projects.
Another thing I appreciated was how this session expanded the way I think creatively. Designing UI forces you to think about:
- functionality (what does this interface do?)
- readability (can someone understand it instantly?)
- story (why is this on the screen?)
- world-building (what kind of “universe” does this belong to?)
It’s not just decoration but more like storytelling through graphic elements.
Learning how to create these assets makes me feel like I have more freedom in my workflow. I don’t feel boxed into one type of visual anymore. The more I learn, the more confident I feel that I can bring any idea to life, whether it’s static, motion-based, or cinematic. That’s important to me as a creative because your tools shape your output, and building a wide skillset makes it easier to experiment, evolve, and separate yourself from everyone else.
This is definitely something I plan on using more in my future work and videos.
