Designers and Animators of the World, Rejoice: GIF's turn 25!

Remember back in the days of Netscape Navigator; the days when anyone with a propensity for black backgrounds and neon green text could make a geocities page? Such pages weren't complete without at least one GIF, though usually those tiny moving graphics like waving USA flags or burning flames made up entire border designs. You may have forgotten about GIFs once we crossed the web 2.0 threshold, but a lot of designers didn't--and thank Jevoha: They've taken the heretofore hideous format and turned into something surprisingly great.

The first GIF appeared in all its pixelated glory in 1987 (!) and to celebrate it 25th anniversary, PBS made a video that tracks the history of the form with a nod to four web wunderkinds who have transformed those little moments of Internet-browsing candy for a contemporary audience. First though, we should probably get one thing straight (as our design compatriots here tell us): it's pronounced Jiff, like the peanut butter, not GIF with a hard G. Yeah, we've been saying it wrong for two decades too. If you're unfamiliar with the form of micro-animation, Patrick Davison of MemeFactory defines it as "an image that's been encoded using the graphics interchange format, where it has multiple frames encoded into a single image file and a web browser or other piece of software will play those images back in animated sequence automatically."

But instead of animating You've Got Mail logos, the new crop of GIF wizards are applying the technology to photo-collages, fashion editorials and scenes from movies.

Our personal favorite are Jamie Beck and Kevin Burg's Cinemagraphs, which remind us of those magical moving pictures in the newspapers from Harry Potter. Beck and Burg describe their work as "the evolution of photography." It's also the most elegant and sophisticated we've seen from GIF-makers so far. Still, GIFs as a serious art form something of a brand new phenomenon. "It's too new," Tumblr's Topher Chris says. "I love being a part of this at a time when we're just figuring it out."

Want to learn how to make your own GIFs? Yes. Yes you do. Enroll in one of 3rd Ward's classes in Multimedia or Web Design.