Blink to Blinking

We are introducing some medals for a race next year. We've done a little filming, and a little photo work. I thought about just making a simple gif that would show the LED's in the medal turning on and off. Then I thought of having the image of the medal with the LED's off, below the word 'Bling', then an animated 'ink' forces his way out between the 'l' and the 'i' in the word 'bling', forcing the two halves apart and they snap back together sandwiching him and the word is now 'Blinking', as the LED's on the medal start blinking on and off. The entire animation is maybe ten seconds? I attached a few shots of the medal just to give an idea of what it looks like. Of course, we can get whatever shots you need to do the best work. This seems simple to me, but I am not an animator - tell me how you would do this project!