Animation is a great way to convey part of your brand – whether it’s a specific product, a service or even your brand values – that are hard to easily capture with traditional video or photography. As an animation agency, we have experience working on a wide range of projects for clients across all sectors, so when it comes to bringing your ideas to life, we know we can help.
When working on an animation project, along with understanding the objective of the video, we’ll also look at what form of motion design will be best for your brand – 2D or 3D animation. But what’s the real difference?
2D Animation
2D animated videos are ideal for character-based videos – whether this is a brand mascot, characters to illustrate your team, or an alternative to a talking head video. As the name suggests, this form of animation works by creating and layering images in a two-dimensional design. Adding voiceovers, transitions and music helps a 2D animated video come to life, adding personality to your brand.
The most famous 2D animation in the world is Mickey Mouse, which was introduced to audiences in 1928 in the short film, Steamboat Willie. Since then, 2D animation continued to prove popular within entertainment, including Disney films from the early 1990s (think The Lion King or Beauty and the Beast), Springfield’s favourite family, The Simpsons and in more recent times, SpongeBob SquarePants.
But 2D animation can be used for more than just entertainment, it’s a great tool to be used within your marketing and branding strategy. As an animation studio, we’ve created a wide range of 2D animated videos for clients, from fire safety videos and corporate sales promos to website headers and product showcases.
One of the biggest benefits of using 2D animation within your marketing strategy is that it’s often bright and bold, which can make a massive impact when used across social media or your website. Although developed as ‘flatter’ imagery, it can also be used to make complicated products or services easy to understand, using relevant imagery that depicts your solution, values or even your mission as a brand.
Just some of the ways that you can effectively adopt 2D animated videos includes within your content strategy (such as on social media, on your website or within pre and post sales communications), as part of your pitch deck for educational or sales purposes and even within your internal communications. With so much of advertising reliant on video and photography – especially in the world of social media – 2D is a great way to make your brand stand out from the crowd.
3D Animation
Whilst 2D animation can grab the attention of your audience, 3D animation can help to truly captivate and wow.
The future of animated films was transformed with release of Toy Story in 1995. Not only was Toy Story the first full length 3D animated film to be released, but it was also the first film to be fully computer-animated. It’s no wonder it was awarded an Oscar! And since then, the advances in 3D animation have grown and it’s now less what is possible and more – what isn’t possible?
3D animation is widely used within entertainment – from films and TV to advertisements and in recent years, it’s gone even further. Merging CGI with 3D animation has changed the game when it comes to advertising, such as Maybelline’s giant-scale mascara wands which were edited to look at though they were travelling through New York. Although it’s impossible for it to be real, this level of animation work could make you think – but is it real?
The possibilities of 3D motion graphics really are endless, with the ability to either mimic a real-life item, or create a whole new world or environment. Our in-house team of animators have skills in using a wide range of industry leading software including Cinema 4D and Redshift to create realistic, true-to-life renders and animations. Some of the 3D animations our team have worked on include creating realistic fireplaces (with dancing flames!), drawing every component within a circuit breaker to make it explode and reassemble, and Grand Designs style building assembly. From colour matching, creating realistic textures and making every element seamlessly fit together like it would in real-life, there’s nothing that our team can’t bring to life.
Elevate your brand
Whether you have a clear idea in your head about how you could utilise animation within your marketing strategy, or you need some guidance, we can help. When we discuss projects with clients, we don’t always go straight with their initial request. We’ll take the time to understand your objectives for the project, how this will be presented (and received by your audience) and then the fun part – the creative side! It may be that you feel a video is what you need, whereas an animation might convey your story in a more powerful and memorable way. And sometimes animation might not be the right fit for your brand, but with our full-marketing services and experience, we know we can help you craft the perfect brand story.
Let’s create your story – get in touch to learn more about our video and animation service or, for a spot of inspiration, take a look at some of our previous work.
