5 Ways to Make a Memorable Animation
Animation is a powerful and future-proof medium and can be a great way to present product and service explainers. As a visual medium it’s an effective way to share a message and ensure it sticks. Think back to the cartoons of your youth, we bet you can remember a lot about those characters!
Here are 5 things to consider to ensure your animation is as memorable for your audience as possible.
1 – Use a character
Animated characters are fairly common in animations and for good reason! Viewers are more likely to remember an animated character as due to their personal characteristics, we can recognise ourselves and our motivations within them.
They can also be a good vehicle to present emotions or tricky subjects in a non-threatening way. Whatever emotion your character is portraying you can guarantee it will resonate with your audience.
In this example for the British Heart Foundation, it was crucial to have a character that we could follow through the process in the lead up to, during and after a heart operation.
2 – Choose the right style
As part of the strategy behind your animation, you should know what message you are looking to portray and who you are targeting. It’s also key to pick the right style to ensure that your message really sings to your audience!
From 2D to 3D animation, photorealism to motion graphics, there are lots of different styles you could consider. It’s important to pick one that fits with your brand, message and audience to make sure your animation is as effective as possible.
For Pitch Sport we needed to ensure that the animation style felt fresh and in keeping with their app. It also needed to blend with the filmed footage. A cartoon or drawn style would not have worked as effectively.
Whereas for RAC it was key that the look and feel of the animation matched the look and feel of the app the explainer was for. So the use of colours and iconography is consistent throughout the animation and matches the app examples when they are shown.
3 – Consider a voiceover
Depending on the style and aim of your animation, in some cases music and on-screen text might be the best way to communicate, in others you might need a voiceover.
Whether or not you need a voiceover artist for your animation, may well come down to whether or not you are using a character and the emotional tone of the piece. A good voiceover artist can aid an additional emotional element to your story and help to retain your audience’s attention span.
In this example we created for The Hamlet charity, the voiceover is what helps the viewer have an emotional connection with the character and really relate to the experiences she is going through.
Whereas in this animation which was designed to encapsulate the flavour and feel of Percy's Bakery and be used in store, online and at events, upbeat music and occasional sounds works better alongside the visual imagery that a voiceover would have.
4 – Make it funny
Humour is a great tool for communicating a memorable message as it hooks your audience’s attention and keeps it until your message sticks. We’re also more likely to remember something that made us laugh, so a funny animation can be a fantastic combination of engagement and retention.
Take this example from Simon's Cat, not only does it nail the issues around working from home, it also creates a memorable situation and characterisation.
5 – Exaggerate
Exaggeration can add so much more to your animation, than if you simply try to duplicate reality. Just a character walking if exaggerated could give an animation much more style and life.
You can also exaggerate throughout animation more than you would think. When working on a still image, you can see it in full detail, whereas when it is viewed as part of an animated shot, our eyes only view it for around 1/24th of a second. Therefore, you need to exaggerate motions in order for them to really be conveyed clearly.
In this example the movement between poses has been exaggerated so they are visible throughout, giving the animation a fluid motion, really engaging the viewer and making us feel as if the characters are focused on the performance.
Let’s get animating!
Thanks for reading our top 5 Ways to make a memorable animation, we hope it’s helped you see how you might tackle your next animation project.
Why not book a call with our team to see how we can help you create animations that work.
