Top 5 Animation Styles You Can Apply To Your Explainer Videos
Marketers rely on animations to tell their stories, break down complex concepts and ideas about their products, illustrate their products and services, and more to explain them to their target audience.
With animated explainer videos, marketers can create a product experience and educate their target audience on the value of their products. Even better, 72% of businesses believe that explainer videos have improved their conversion rate.
There are several animation styles for your explainer video. You can’t use the same animation for a product and an app. Similarly, you cannot apply the same animation style to physical and digital products.
In this article, you’ll discover the best animation styles you can use to create great explainer videos to grow your business. We’ll give you tips on using videos and what types of products they are best suited for.
5 Best Animation Styles You Should Use For Your Explainer Videos
1. 2D Animation
Best for: apps, digital products, online services, and storytelling.
Blockchain Explainer Video: AIP on Vimeo
2D animation consists of creating, placing, and animating (through manipulation) 2D graphic elements in a bidimensional space. The process entails drawing a series of images and quickly synchronizing them in a sequence to create a motion illusion.
The results of 2D animation have much more of a classic look and draw very little of reality. For example, one way to animate a 2D character is to exaggerate the facial features, create a grimace, enlarge the eyes, and more.
You can use 2D animation to create your characters and tell stories. But you should not expect too much from the vividness and quality of the animated images. In fact, 2D animation styles are an excellent alternative if you are starting and lack the financial means to invest in more expensive animation. But if you can, we recommend you shoot for better and more modern animation styles.
2. 3D Animation
Best for: apps, digital products, online services, and storytelling.
Airwallex – Brand Animation on Vimeo
3D animation uses 3D modeling tools to create objects and characters, place them in a 3D space, and then animate them to create the illusion of movement. 3D animation is quite popular in the marketing space and is rightfully considered an upgrade on 2D animation.
Although there are many technical differences between 2D and 3D animation (namely, the production process), the most significant difference is in the clarity of the images and their natural effect. Of course, 3D wins across the board.
You can use 3D animations to create perfect cartoon characters, objects, scenes, and many other elements that help you tell your story and illustrate your product. But 3D animation does require a meticulous approach to animation.
If the movements of your objects or characters are irregular, robotic, or clumsy, all your work will be ruined. Consequently, it is also generally more expensive than 2D animation.
3. Whiteboard Animation
Best for: Physical products, digital products, and online services.
Create your own explainer video in minutes – simpleshow video maker
Whiteboard animation involves hand-drawing people and objects and animating them to illustrate a story or an explanation on a whiteboard. The most significant advantage of this animation style is that it allows you to use your imagination to explain concepts or ideas to your target audience.
The distinctive feature of whiteboard animation is that it relies primarily on hand-drawn sketches on a whiteboard. You can draw pictures to illustrate every point you make, making it ideal for online courses, product sales, or services—as long as you want to tell stories or educate your audience by harnessing the power of imagination.
4. Motion Graphics Animation Styles
Best for: apps, physical and digital products, online services, and storytelling.
Phonexa — Explainer Video on Vimeo
As its name suggests, motion graphics are animation styles that consists of animating graphic elements. Its particularity is to use the potential of movement as its primary animation tool. Animators use this type of animation to create explainer videos by bringing texts, shapes, or graphics to life in a digital space. They do this by designing the elements they need (shapes, text, etc.) and adding motion to them.
This is the ideal animation style for your application, software, non-tangible products, or even website’s user interface, and it can tell a great story about the user experience. Marketers can create amazing explainer videos that easily and clearly explain complex concepts in minutes.
5. Animated Typography
Best for: apps, physical and digital products, online services, and storytelling.
Apple’s big news in 108 seconds. Apple
This technique involves designing text or written content and animating it to create an explainer video. Typically, you design the text in a digital space and use animation and overlay techniques to make it emerge and flow as desired. It is common practice to have the text appear as a caption while the voiceover speaks.
The great thing about these types of videos is that they are highly inexpensive and allow you to create explainer videos for any kind of product. Plus, it is as easy as moving text on a background. Almost anyone with a computer can make a typographic animation explainer video with the right tool. The most challenging part is writing the script.
Use simpleshow’s Video Maker To Create Your Animated Explainer Video
Keep in mind that there are several styles of video animation. But the ones presented on this list are the most effective in video marketing strategies and explainer videos. So, after reading this article, you’re probably wondering how to create the animation video of your choice or approach a production company to create it for you. Well, meet simpleshow video maker.
simpleshow video maker helps you create explainer and demonstrative videos in minutes. It’s an animation video creation platform that helps you produce all kinds of animated explainer videos that aim to illustrate a complex concept or educate an audience.
simpleshow video maker defies the limitations of traditional video makers. The beauty of it is that you don’t need any experience. It has simple and easy-to-use features that empower even the less savvy video creator to create professional videos. Also, you don’t have to start from scratch. You can use thousands of original simpleshow illustrations and a storyline template based on your topic.
You can leverage the Explainer Engine AI to assess your script and illustrate your story with perfect-fit images. You’ll also get support, helpful advice, and valuable examples that make it easy to create a script that brings your message to life.
Author Bio
Michael Pirone is the co-founder and creative director at Vidico, a video production agency that produces high-performing video content for startups and tech companies like Square, Uber, and Amazon Web Services. Michael and his team like to explain “the hard stuff” with the aim of bringing more clarity to the messaging of new and innovative tech products around the world.