Here is a compilation of the work that I've been doing for the last year and a half. Find more at Videos and Motion Graphics by Wes Coughlin in Bend, Oregon (http://wildlookout.com/videos)

Reel 2011 on Vimeo

Nice reel Wes!

Excellent variety and camera work!

Thanks Tom! I appreciate the compliment.

Awesome. I'm a big fan! Jealous of the motion graphics stuff, I feel like that's a real weak spot for me right now, I haven't found many resources on learning it that I was happy with though. All the tutorials out there are for cheesy effects. Great work!

Thanks Evan!

I think if you are interested in getting better at motion graphics you also need to look into learning more about design. I'm not an expert designer, but I do know people who are designers that have started to work in After Effects, and some of their creations are really superb for the amount of time they have been working with motion design.

Here are some ways I practiced improving my design skills: Design and build websites, design logos (my wildlookout logo took about three weeks and over 100 revisions, and its still probably not great, logo design is hard), try to understand "why" designer do what they do, check out design galleries like behanced and creattica.

Any time man!

I definitely agree, and I could definitely still use some design practice haha, but I come from a photoshop/design background before video, so my trouble generally is more of the getting it to work how I want in after effects and have it move the way I want. I could lay it out in photoshop all day, it's the actually working after effects that confuses me haha.

On a semi-related note: Logos are the bane of my existence haha, I desperately could use a good one for my current business though. I would probably consider what I did/do sometimes as more digital art than design, as I wasn't super big on logos and flyers and whatnot, I liked making things that look cool :P would love your feedback on some of my work, it's at EBourcier Creative (http://ebourcier.com/49858/design-)

Thanks,
Evan

Your design stuff looks good Evan. Maybe try to take your poster/design concepts and turn them into videos by taking actual footage of snowboarding (or whatever), and then time remapping it, composite the background, and add the graphical accents and type to it. Just to practice the AE stuff.