Towards the end of 2021 Vistra ran a survey of their key advisors to see which trends would affect their clients the most in 2022. The survey returned four key themes, and in order to share their findings with their clients they created the Trends 2022 campaign.
I was asked to animate some supporting visuals to go alongside the information. They were looking for a subtly shifting pattern of overlapping circles, which could serve as a backdrop to the information when presented on screen. There were four different colour palettes, one for each of the key themes.
The final patterns were very slow and subtle, taking 45 seconds to complete a full loop. Creating the overlapping effect in After Effects wasn’t as simple as placing the layers on top of each other and applying a blending mode e.g. Screen or Overlay, as the intersecting areas needed to be a specific tint of the main colour.
To solve this I firstly hand animated the paths of each of the three circles, making sure they had plenty of overlap. I then created pre-compositions for each of the intersections e.g. Circle 1 with Circle 2 and used a track matte to leave just the intersecting area, which I then applied a colour overlay to. I did the same process for the intersection of all three of the circles together and applied the most opaque colour. This gives the effect of multiple semi-transparent layers overlapping each other, whilst actually being three independent solid colours.