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The Art of the Animated GIF

Posted by samzenpus on from the high-low-and-animated-art dept.

theodp writes "Some artists work in oils, some in pastels, some in acrylics. Photographer Jamie Beck and motion graphics artist Kevin Burg? Their medium of choice is animated GIFs. 'We wanted to tell more of a story than a single still frame photograph but didn't want the high maintenance aspect of a video,' said the two of their unusual collaboration. Needless to say, these are not your father's GeoCities 'Under Construction' GIFs — it can take several hours of manual editing for Beck and Burg to breathe the whisper of life into each image."

28 of 129 comments (clear)

  1. Not exactly animated GIFs, but can't miss this: by goruka · · Score: 5, Interesting

    http://www.effectgames.com/demos/canvascycle/

  2. not loading by phantomfive · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The images aren't loading on the page, so here is the original blog with more images: right here. And I would also say one of the nicest looking web page designs I've ever seen.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    1. Re:not loading by x*yy*x · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's your own fault for using plugins that break compatibility. Frankly I don't think Gawker even cares about you, since they're ad run site like most of the internet and rather just have the visitors that are worth something to them.

    2. Re:not loading by Jarik+C-Bol · · Score: 2

      thanks to the proper images not loading on gawker, i thought the pepsi throwback ad was the artwork for a moment, and didn't think they qualified as art the way the article was describing.

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      I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
    3. Re:not loading by Anrego · · Score: 2

      Normally I'd agree with you.. whining that a site doesn't work with noscript is pointless because as you said, once you use something like that you are out of the demographic most for-profit sites care about.

      However in this case, Gawker really does have a screwed up web design.. and their public stats have shown that not only did their traffic practically get cut in half when they rolled out the new design... but their traffic has continued to decline.

  3. APNG/MNG by tomstockmail · · Score: 3, Interesting

    We need to start utilizing APNG or MNG. Firefox does support APNG, most Webkit browsers do not sadly. APNG has the advantage of displaying the first frame in any PNG capable program. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APNG http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MNG

    1. Re:APNG/MNG by jd · · Score: 2

      APNG is a nice format. Must say an animated version of OpenEXR would be fun too.

      --
      It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
    2. Re:APNG/MNG by TheRaven64 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And, in common with most DRM forms, it means that you get a better experience with a pirated version. If you want to enjoy the Mona Lisa, go and look at a decent quality copy - to see the original, you queue for ages in a hot room, then get a few seconds to look at it through glass that's so thick that you can barely make out the detail before being moved on so that the next people in the queue can see it. Look at a decent copy, and you can spend as long as you like and can easily move from a place where you can see the entire picture to a close view of individual portions.

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  4. Some of my favorite... by Sooner+Boomer · · Score: 2

    ...animated gifs

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    Chaos maximizes locally around me.
  5. Re:Uhm.. by no+known+priors · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I think it's more that Gawker uses a moronic JavaScript method of making pages, with no non-JavaScript fallback. I use NoScript, therefore, I'm not going to see the article. That's fine, as I'm sure that someone else will post all the interesting bits in the discussion thread.

    I really wanted to see those animated gifs that take ages to make though. They must be awesome. But not enough to potentially open up my browser to an attack. If Gawker are too incompetent to make a non-JavaScript fallback,I don't thin they'd be able to protect themselves against someone taking over their site and inserting malicious JavaScript in it...

    (Also, MNG and APNG, neither of which has any real support. Have the GIF patents expired yet?)

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  6. If we don't, remember me. by bennomatic · · Score: 5, Interesting

    These are some of the best animated gifs I've ever seen.

    --
    The CB App. What's your 20?
    1. Re:If we don't, remember me. by bennomatic · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Yeah, I like the ones where very little is moving except maybe someone's eyes or hair, or their breathing. This one is one of my faves.

      --
      The CB App. What's your 20?
  7. Why not use SVG by nzac · · Score: 2

    From the Article

    So why did Beck and Burg choose the GIF format, rather than something more flexible like Flash? After all, it doesn't take more than a couple of these gorgeous pics to slow most browsers to a crawl. "The format has interesting capabilities as well as some severe limitations which are very influential in the visual style of our images," say the pair. "GIF is very basic, highly linkable through outlets such as Tumblr, and integrated into the web. Flash certainly has more capabilities but since our images are at their heart a traditional photograph, a format like .gif makes the most sense."

    I know its not fully supported across all browsers yet but the format would be even more integrated into the current web. I don’t think GIFs deserve to be called the "Jazz of the Internet"[article]. I was hoping bad GIFs were something from last decade, that stayed there.

    Most work well in Firefox 4
    http://svg-wow.org/

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SVG_animation

    PS the pics are quite good but they promote GIF when it should die

    1. Re:Why not use SVG by kevinmenzel · · Score: 2

      SVG is vector animation, no? Wouldn't it be absolutely ridiculously awful at something like replacing this style of animated gif? Surely, what you SHOULD be advocating is something like APNG?

    2. Re:Why not use SVG by antimatter15 · · Score: 2, Informative

      No, SVG is for vector graphics and can't encode a photograph (losslessly anyway with any decent speed) as a SVG document. Plus, the file size would be huge. There's lots of things SVG would be great for, stick figure animations and throbbers. But not this.

    3. Re:Why not use SVG by Jimbookis · · Score: 2

      Well, that's great. The demos on SVG-WOW make my i7 break out into TurboBoost mode. So I can look forward to crappy 1996 era slowness on web pages again in the future. At least we'll know what to blame global warming on in the future.

  8. 3D Animated GIFs - Another thing to try by martin-boundary · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I've always liked these wiggling 3D animated gifs.

  9. These are the kind of devs I want to bitchslap by $RANDOMLUSER · · Score: 2

    "Shit, I'm running a quad-core with 8 gigs of RAM and a T-1, with only one tab in a single browser window open, isn't everyone??"

    And while you're at it, throw in a lot of JavaScript with loops and poll the server every 9 seconds to see if anything new has been put up on the server. And pull in lots of include scripts from your advertisers doing the same sort of crap. You know, sites like Huffington Post, or, errr, Slashdot....

    --
    No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
  10. Re:Uhm.. by no+known+priors · · Score: 4, Informative

    Apparently I'm not the only one who dislikes the design. from here:

    When Gawker Media launched a big redesign in February 2011, its traffic halved. That can happen because even when you do good things, people don’t like change. It can take them a while to adapt to the new environment. So, assuming for a moment the Gawker redesign was a good thing, have things picked up again?

    “Turns out, according to Gawker’s public statistics, things are much, much worse than was originally reported,” The Atlantic Online states. “Yes, the redesign cut traffic in half almost instantly, but instead of coming back, even more readers left the site behind.”

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  11. Re:Uhm.. by ndogg · · Score: 5, Informative

    Skip Gawker. Go to their website directly:

    http://fromme-toyou.tumblr.com/tagged/cinemagraph

    And yes, they are truly beautiful animations.

    --
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    #include "frickin_lasers.h"
  12. APNG is still my fav. by Dayofswords · · Score: 4, Informative

    lossless + animation = movie-like images

    --
    Someday we'll hit the human carrying capacity. And the band will just play on.
  13. Re:Wake me up for animated pngs... by phantomfive · · Score: 3, Informative

    Despite what many people believe, GIFs aren't limited to 256 colors. Although you would have realized that if you'd actually read the story. It may be another 10 years before animated PNGs are universally supported.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  14. Re:Wake me up for animated pngs... by Gaygirlie · · Score: 3, Insightful

    zzz...1997...

    What does the age of the technique have to do with anything? Hell, wheels were invented and used thousands of years ago and they're still in use even today.

    zzz...256 colors...zzzzzzz....

    Limitations in color representation again doesn't really say anything negative. Those GIFs look just great, and it tells about the skills of those who created them that you cannot spot any definite miscolourings in any of those images.

    Please. Wake me up when we've invented animated PNGs.

    https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/APNG

  15. They are effectively though by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 3, Informative

    That page you sent people to is a good example why. the 32k GIF renders extremely slowly on both FF4 and IE9. It goes one block at a time. Also, when I looked at the properties of it in FF, it only showed the first block, and then proceeded to do so on the page, even after a reload. Not the kind of thing you want on your webpage.

    Also there's the fact that precious little saves them. The reason is that the GIF format does actually NOT support more than 8-bits per pixel. What they are doing to make those high colour GIFs is messing with animation. You make a non-looping animation that doesn't render the whole image area, but rather tiles. Fine but:

    1) It is a rather hacked way of doing things.
    2) It is slow in most browsers (as I pointed out).
    3) It defeats any hope of having an animated GIF since it is using animation.

    For all practical purposes, GIFs are limited to 256 colours. In the case of animations you get 256 per frame, and the frames don't have to be the same though some programs may not support that correctly.

  16. Re:Uhm.. by Jarik+C-Bol · · Score: 2

    here's a link to the article that gawker used. http://www.fastcodesign.com/1663683/far-better-than-3-d-animated-gifs-that-savor-a-passing-moment

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    I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
  17. Re:go to their website directly by TaoPhoenix · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Actually, you just mentioned one of the key problems with Web 2.0: "Why bother to link the site of an unknown artist who might be able to use the traffic, when you can link an intermediary aggregator first?"

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  18. Re:go to their website directly by E+IS+mC(Square) · · Score: 2

    Well said. It seems Web2.0 has come with Stupidity factor without which it does not work.

    And, I am anyway not clicking on ANY gawker link. They do not deserve any traffic whatsoever, especially not from /..

  19. Re:Uhm.. by gnapster · · Score: 2

    But there is enough of each image shown to right-click and open or save the image by itself. Or you could just go to the artists' site, as mentioned by someone below: http://fromme-toyou.tumblr.com/tagged/cinemagraph

    It is interesting work based on a really nice concept.