Ditch the Screens After You Watch the ABCs of Staying at Home

Animator Julie Reiters has created an animation with the A-to-Zs of how to spend your time when you’re staying safer at home. Her message ultimately spells this: Ditch the screens.

Reiters has lived in Denver for the past five years, and was a motion-graphics designer at Craftsy for three years before starting her own small motion-design studio, Ito + J, with her friend Dan Ito.

A year ago, she was working on an ABC children’s book that introduced tough words to kids through humor.

“I wrote a manuscript and started developing illustrations, but became a little discouraged and lost steam after realizing the concept had already been published in children’s-book form a few times over – one of them being by Jamie Lee Curtis,” Reiters explains. “The project and idea went dormant until a few weeks ago, when I reworked things to create a rhyme celebrating a simple, fun-at-home activity for each letter of the alphabet.”

Like many, Reiters has noticed how much people’s screen time has increased since we’ve been staying at home. While she is hardly a Luddite (she is a digital animator, after all), she wanted to encourage people to find things to do with their lives other than stare at screens.

“The animation doesn’t explicitly denounce screen time, but it was important to me to use this as a way to remind all of us that there are rejuvenating, relaxing and creative things anyone can do from their own home that don’t require a phone, TV or tablet,” she says.

Here’s the result:

The ABCs of Things To Do When You're Stuck At Home from Julie Reiters on Vimeo.

Once you’ve watched it, ditch your screen and do something else for a while.

“I hope the animation inspires people to revisit old hobbies, try new ones, call friends they haven’t spoken to in years, and appreciate the tree outside their window,” says Reiters. “Give it a real good look.”

For more about her work, go to Julie Reiters and the Ito & J website.