ART 220 · Charleston Southern University · Fall 2026
Final Project. Animated Illustration (4 weeks)
You choose the subject and the venue. Design an illustration that moves and deliver it as a seamless loop along with the still image it came from. You will learn to prepare artwork for animation, timing and easing, and loop construction and export, using every tool the term has covered.
The run
Every due date is a class day. Work is turned in on Blackboard, presented in class, or both. The late-work policy is in the syllabus.
Final Project. Animated Illustration (4 weeks)
You choose the subject and the venue. Design an illustration that moves and deliver it as a seamless loop along with the still image it came from. You will learn to prepare artwork for animation, timing and easing, and loop construction and export, using every tool the term has covered.
- You are given
- The venue is yours to pick and name in one sentence: where does this loop live, and at what size does it play?
- What you make
- One seamless loop, three to ten seconds, from artwork you made: vector, drawn, or both.The loop has to actually loop. The last frame hands off to the first with no seam.Timing is designed: eased, not linear, and readable at the venue's size.Deliver alongside the finished still it came from.
- Hand in
- The loop as an mp4 and a gif, sized for the venue you named.The still image at full quality.Working files: the layered artwork and the animation file.
- AI use
- Ideation is Open, disclosed and cited. Output is Closed, and for this project that includes motion: generated video, generated frames and frame interpolation count as output. The artwork and the movement are made by you.
TueOct 13no class
Fall Break
TueNov 17
Motion study
One short study: a single element moving, eased, looping cleanly. This confirms your tools and your export work before the project depends on them.
TueNov 24
Rough loop
The whole piece moving, rough. Timing should be readable; the artwork does not have to be finished.
ThuNov 26no class
Thanksgiving
Final critique
The final loops screened and defended, in the exam slot the registrar assigns. The final project is due at the start. You talk about what the image is for, what you tried, and what you would do next.
Dec 8 to Dec 14
The last class
What is in the repository at the end of class is what is graded.
Finding the audience
Your personal statement points at the audiences you already know. Bring three candidates, each found in one of these four places, due Sep 9.
- A world you know
- A craft, a job you have held, a subject you are inside. You already know what the people in it buy and what they complain about.
- Your community
- A group or place you belong to. You can ask people directly what they need.
- Yourself
- You would use this product if someone sold it to you right. The risk is that you are the only one; the research will tell you.
- A wild card
- An audience that simply interests you. Held to the same evidence as the other three.
Problem framing
Problem framing is discovering and defining a problem your audience shares. It comes from design thinking, which puts people at the center of the work. Skip it and nobody can see what your product is for. Answer four questions, then compress the answers into one statement.
- Who
- Who has the problem, and how do you know?
- What
- What is the problem, and what signs show it?
- Why
- Why solve it, and what does it cost unsolved?
- Where
- In what circumstances does it show up?
Your problem statement is the four answers written as one short statement from the audience's side, due Sep 14.
The creative brief distills what the pitch settled: the client, the budget, the date, the audience, and the business problem. It is the reference every later phase answers to.
The deck
You prepare and present a deck of your research and initial insights: nine slides, three minutes.
01
Cover
The subject, one line saying what it is, your name and the date. No version number; the repository tracks versions.
02
The product
What it is and what it can do, compressed out of your problem statement. One slide. The source is on it.
03
The audience
Specific people, named the way you would name them to a client. Not a demographic bracket.
04
The problem
One sentence, set large, alone on the slide. If it needs a second sentence it is two problems.
05
The evidence
What you actually found, sourced. This slide decides whether the problem is real.
06
What they buy today
What the audience uses instead, and what those choices cost them.
07
The four questions
Who, what, why, and where, answered short. This is where a bad problem gets caught early.
08
What you do not know
The open questions, written down as questions. Every honest deck has some.
09
What the machine did
The three lines. Same format as everything else you hand in.
How you show your work
The work lives in one repository, with a running log of what you decided and what the machine did. How to set both up, and what a good entry looks like, gets its own note early in the term.
- The stand-up
- Work sessions open with three minutes each, screen up: what moved, what is stuck, what you will have done by next time. Participation is graded here. The rest of the session is yours to work in, with me in the room.
- Say what moved
- When a piece is re-presented, one line on what changed and why: critique, evidence, or the machine.
- What the machine did
- Three lines closing every piece you hand in: the tools you used by name; what you asked for and what came back; what you changed, cut or overruled. "None" is a complete answer.
- The rule under all of it
- Use AI on anything in this course, and defend everything you turn in as your own decision. Check every fact a model gives you; when one fails in the room, the error is yours.
How it is graded
Every piece of work is graded on the same four counts, each a quarter of that piece's grade. Participation and presentations are graded on their own; their weights, and each milestone's, are in the syllabus.
- Participation/Process · 25%
- Contributing to class discussions and critiques; improving work as a result of research and iteration.
- Concept · 25%
- Responding to the problem statement innovatively; thinking critically about work based on critiques, readings and discussions.
- Formal Resolution · 25%
- Making work that is aesthetically sophisticated, effective and appropriate given concept and context.
- Craft · 25%
- Taking care in manufacture of work; showing technical ability.