Resources

In this section you can find tools and materials to help you improve your motion design business. Expect to find useful app and book recommendations, including special offers available to the Motion Hatch community.

First off, we want to make clear that we have used and fully endorse every one of these recommendations.

Some of the links below are affiliate links. Basically this means that if you decide to make a purchase through one of these links, we will earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you. You can be sure that we would recommend these products whether or not we made any commission on them. Please don’t spend your money on them if you don’t think that they will truly help you improve your business, although in our experience, they will.

Apps

Helping you be more organised and grow your business.

WIPSTER

The new way to review and collaborate on videos

Motion Hatch uses Wipster to collect feedback and review animations in our Mograph Mastermind program. It's a great way to get feedback from your clients. Getting rid of the need to have timecoded email chains!

SKILL SHARE

Skillshare offer a wide range of courses on design and business. It’s a great way to continue to learn new techniques and do short courses to level up your business.

ADOBE STOCK

Try Adobe Stock Free for One Month

  • Get 10 Adobe Stock standard assets with your free 30-day trial
  • You won't be charged until your 2nd month when you sign up for one year of Adobe Stock (10 assets a month plan) at £19.99/mo. (plus applicable taxes)
  • Cancel risk-free within the first month

ADOBE CREATIVE CLOUD

Discover the Creative Cloud experience

Inspiration you capture, assets you create and images you need – always at your fingertips.

ADOBE CREATIVE CLOUD – STUDENT AND TEACHER EDITION

Students and teachers, save 60% on our most popular plan.

Get Creative Cloud All Apps plan for 60% off for the first year and 40% off after that. That’s a significant discount from the standard Individuals All Apps price.

ADOBE AFTER EFFECTS

Create cinematic movie titles, intros, and transitions. Remove an object from a clip. Start a fire or make it rain. Animate a logo or character. With After Effects, the industry-standard motion graphics and visual effects software, you can take any idea and make it move.

GRAMMARLY

Take the guesswork out of great writing. Check your emails, documents, essays, and more. See what you can accomplish with the power of Grammarly at your fingertips. Eliminate grammar errors. Easily improve any text.

Transferwise

One question that comes up a lot when working with international clients is how should I ask them to pay me? We recommend using Transferwise it’s fast and easy to use. You can give your client your bank details in their currency making it easy for them to deposit money into your account which means you get paid faster!

Books to inspire you

The book links below take you off our website to an Amazon page to make the purchase.

Freelance Manifesto

The Freelance Manifesto offers a field guide for Motion Design professionals looking to make the leap to freelance in two clear and concise parts. The first examines the goals, benefits, myths, and realities of the freelance lifestyle, while the second provides future freelancers with a five-step guide to launching and maintaining a solo business, including making contact, selling yourself, closing the deal, being indispensable, and becoming a lucrative enterprise.

If you’re feeling stifled by long hours, low-paying gigs, and an unfulfilling career, make the choice to redesign yourself as a freelancer—and, with the help of this book and some hard work, reclaim your time, independence, and inspiration for yourself.

Linchpin

Godin shows that the key to being indispensable is overcoming the fears that hold most of us back. If you have you ever found a shortcut that others missed, seen a new way to resolve a conflict, or made a connection with someone others couldn't reach, then you have what it takes to become indispensable. It's time to stop complying with the system and draw your own map.

Animators Survival Kit

Not a business book but a must have for any motion designer or animator. Teaching you the methods that went into the best animation in the world.

In this book, based on Richard Williams sold-out Animation Masterclass in the United States and across Europe, Williams provides the underlying principles of animation that very animator – from beginner to expert, classic animator to computer animation whiz – needs.

Using hundreds of drawings, Williams distills the secrets of the masters into a working system in order to create a book that has become the standard work on all forms of animation for professionals, students and fans.

Atomic Habits

People think when you want to change your life, you need to think big. But world-renowned habits expert James Clear has discovered another way. He knows that real change comes from the compound effect of hundreds of small decisions – doing two push-ups a day, waking up five minutes early, or holding a single short phone call.

You can use Atomic Habits to help you move your career forward as well as in your everyday life. We even made a podcast episode about it!

The One Thing

In The ONE Thing, you'll learn to

* cut through the clutter
* achieve better results in less time
* build momentum toward your goal
* dial down the stress
* overcome that overwhelmed feeling 
* revive your energy 
* stay on track
* master what matters to you.

We are often overwhelmed by our work and daily life. The One Thing helps you focus on what really matters to help take your motion design career to the next level.

Deep Work

Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. It's a skill that allows you to quickly master complicated information and produce better results in less time. Deep Work will make you better at what you do and provide the sense of true fulfillment that comes from craftsmanship. 

 In short, deep work is like a super power in our increasingly competitive twenty-first century economy. And yet, most people have lost the ability to go deep-spending their days instead in a frantic blur of e-mail and social media, not even realizing there's a better way.

In Deep Work, author and professor Cal Newport flips the narrative on impact in a connected age. Instead of arguing distraction is bad, he instead celebrates the power of its opposite. Dividing this book into two parts, he first makes the case that in almost any profession, cultivating a deep work ethic will produce massive benefits. He then presents a rigorous training regimen, presented as a series of four “rules,” for transforming your mind and habits to support this skill.

1. Work Deeply
2. Embrace Boredom
3. Quit Social Media
4. Drain the Shallows

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