One of my buddies Braden Kopf reached out to me in early 2021 about a personal project he was working on and asked if I'd be able to create a graphics package for him. My schedule has been absurdly tight with client work, so we had quite awhile of back and forth. Finally after a few months of talking, I decided to take this project and make it an opportunity for Braden to actually jump into our private beta round for a start-up I co-founded called Simplate. For a little context, Simplate is an online platform in which a professional motion designer can create a custom piece and push it to our online platform where ANYONE can then create and iterate videos. While Braden is a videographer, he doesn't have a whole lot of experience designing or animating. This was a perfect opportunity to test one of our potential verticals, of creating graphics packages which could be implimented into larger videos. 

Braden created a pilot episode for a youtube series which highlights four independent music artists' videos every show. For you other nineties babies, just imagine MTV's TRL, except it's slimmed down and hosted by a badass hipster. I kept the deliverables pretty slimm and straight forward. I designed and animated an intro, mid-frame and lower thirds, all of which have certain elements which can be adjusted on Simplate. Now he can easily insert new imagery, change artist names and customize elements to fit each of his subsequent episodes.

While this process is on-going I'll be sure to create a few specific write-ups on my journey with Simplate. It's an extremely powerful tool and we are lucky enough to have a world class team of developers building the platform out. I can't wait to share more, but in the mean time if you're interested, swing by simplate.io and sign up for our private beta users list.

Special thanks goes out to my friend Caleb Condit for letting me cop his lifestyle photography for the piece and of course, Braden for being one of my Simplate guinnea pigs.