Animation examples and styles

Your explainer needs to look and feel the part. Because then it will be engaging. But which animated explainer style should you choose?

No two brands are the same. Every audience is different. That’s why our design team will work with you to develop a visual style that’s tailor-made for your brand, your objective and your audience.

The explainer animation styles below give you a glimpse of what we’ve done for other brands, but you don’t need to choose one of these styles for your explainer. They’re food for thought. They show you what’s possible and how we’ve made other brands look and feel the part.

If you’d like to find out more about how we can develop an animation style that’s right for your brand, drop us a line and we’ll talk about the best approach for your project.

Or read our FAQs and get our guide for more information about all aspects of the creative process and pricing.

One of the most effective ways to use animation to communicate a concept, especially if it is complicated, is to create a clean and simple illustrative style. Instead of showing oodles of detail, we show just the key elements most relevant to the viewer. For software companies this has the added benefit of making a platform look simple and easy to use.

Animated characters are designed largely based on a companies brand guidelines or existing assets. The way they move depends on budget. Characters can be great for playful brands or to build empathy, but you are best to steer away from this type of animation if the character is to represent the viewer. Personifying the viewer may have a negative effect.

Using an animated video can be very effective when launching a public relations campaign. They are particularly interesting pieces to work on as they involve more than the average look at the psychology of the audience. The goal is to create an intent that supplements the wider campaign.

Often these animations are centred around complicated software that needs a simple delivery. With just 90 seconds (200 word script), it’s key to distil the features of most benefit to the user and demonstrate the product’s value not just in time or money, but ease of use.

Using other media, say film or photography with animation can add a whole new dimension to your video. It distinguishes you from the competition and can give your brand a higher perceived value (through higher production value). Especially useful if you want to personify the brand traits.

It’s difficult to find a word to describe this style of animation. Whilst a brand’s guidelines will largely dictate the visual look of the video, we’ve dubbed this style of animation ‘classic’ or ‘cartoony’, purely because it’s the most common type of visual look you’ll see when searching for explainer videos.

At first glance you might be thinking, what in the heck is ‘conceptual’. Simply put, a conceptual animation takes a look at the brand guidelines and script from a more creative standpoint. Less literal. For example, if the script mentions results, a ‘classic’ animation would show a graph, whereas a ‘conceptual’ animation will distil the nature of the message.

As it says on the tin, how-to animations simply explain a process to the viewer. These are useful for brands who want to either reduce customer service calls from clients or want to add value to their existing customer base.

Animated explainer videos for the finance sector tend to be on the technical side, but with the right visual style, they can communicate complex messages effectively. We don’t spell out every detail of the product in the video though and rather the aim to excite the viewer, but leave them with unanswered questions. This is a powerful motivator to contact you.

We’ve worked with clients from every sector, across the globe. Each with a unique challenge and brand identity. To learn more about how we can create an animated explainer style for your brand, drop us a line or get our guide.