Reimagine Your Favorite Fictional Restaurant in Neon

For the class project you'll be taking your favorite fictional restaurant and reimagining its name as a neon sign. Here's an example of what you could do:

If you need help thinking of a restaurant, here's a great list of fictional restaurants to pick from. And if someone else has already picked the restaurant you wanted to do, don't worry! Go ahead and make your own version of it.

The great thing about this effect is that since we're using After Effects, we're not limited to light bulbs just turning on and off. You could animate your design any number of ways, and still apply this effect. So after I show you how to make a more traditional, true to life animation of a neon sign, I'll show you how to get a little more creative and animate something a bit more complex.

Project Steps

You can quickly and easily get your project going right away with these 4 simple steps:

Pick a restaraunt you want to make a neon sign for and post it to your project page.
Design your sign and post it to the project page. Include any inspiration you found to help other students get creative.
Create a custom neon glow in After Effects and apply it to your design. Post a still image of the glow to your project page.
Animate your neon sign traditionally or creatively (or both!) and post a looping video to your project page.

Kate Didyk

Graphic artist

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