Create your own GIFs
The beautiful weather has both made the trees leaf out and given us more opportunities to get together. Besides the weather, Elisa also supported us by letting us borrow a number of different tablets. The sunny weather and the tablets could only mean one thing — let’s organize a workshop!
We planned to conduct a GIF creation workshop where everyone could try their designer’s hand at creating digital visuals. GIF is a file format that is 33 years old and can be used to represent moving images. It is often used precisely to convey one’s emotions more clearly when one sentence says, “I’m excited!” or just one excited emoticon: 🤪.
Just as unexpectedly as the summer came, we also came across the GIF battle “Make time right” organized by the Education Center of the National Library of Estonia. Therefore, we chose the idea of the education center to create GIFs to illustrate Estonian proverbs and sayings as the main focus of the workshop. Participation in the competition also required that images, videos and articles would be searched from various digital libraries around the world as source material.
Due to the beautiful weather, we had some difficulty at first in finding a place where the tablet would reflect not the user’s face but the digital image on the screen. That’s why we gladly settled in the shade of the freshly leafed-out trees, where we first talked about free-access media and how to search for it. We then discussed who can be photographed and how, and what the good practices are for adding and using media in different programs.
Since there are a million possibilities to create a GIF, we gave everyone the opportunity to make a work of art at their heart’s desire. To create GIFs, we used GIPHY webpage, where both videos and images could be used as raw material. To do this, you can either upload your material to the GIPHY environment or search for suitable images and videos on the Internet. After adding the source material, you can add various stickers, texts and edit images. This is the way you can make your own GIF!
By the end of the workshop, there were moving images illustrating proverbs and sayings and just as exciting digital works of art. If you are also interested in how to make GIFs, then check out GIPHY webpage where you can make your own artwork.
Workshop: Steveli Säde, Eva Liisa Kubinyi and Kertu Ilves
Text: Kertu Ilves
Photos: Elis Vilde
