Motion graphics to make your content come alive
The use of After Effects based motion graphics has exploded in the industry over the last 5 years. We pride ourselves at being at the cutting edge of this technology. From incorporating headers and footers into a talking head video to an all singing, all dancing AFX production – we’ve got it covered.
Motion graphics comes in a lot of different flavours, from typographic and explainer videos, to live action/graphic mix and stop motion animation. The wealth of opportunities for turning a dry topic into an interesting, vibrant motion graphics video is why they is so popular currently.
Motion graphics can make even a modest budget go incredibly far, making your business look magical. Get in touch to have a chat with us about the potential.
Motion graphics are a linchpin of modern commercial and corporate video production. The best way to differentiate between motion graphics and standard animation (we’re asked a lot!) is that motion graphics don’t necessarily have to be character or story driven, they often animate company logos or manipulate typography to create the message. Motion graphics is the point where animation and graphic design meet.
The history of motion graphics goes back to the advent of cinema with early animators manipulating abstract imagery in time with music. As cinema developed great innovators like Saul Bass and Maurice Binder pushed the art form in incredible new directions. Bass with incredible opening sequences like Psycho and Vertigo and Binder with all the James Bond film opening sequences from 1961 till 1989.
The biggest development in the past 30 years for motion graphics, of course came with the advent of computer graphics. Speed started to pick up in the late 1980s with graphics systems like Abekas and K-scope. More recently Adobe After Effects has come to dominate the industry within commercial and corporate video and has a healthy presence in TV adverts and feature films too.
We’re a friendly bunch at Hightower and would love to hear from you. Give us a call on
As the industry has matured, so the different possibilities for motion graphics in TV adverts, corporate and web video have exploded. Here are a some of the options available for disseminating your message with motion
Explainer motion graphic videos are a terrific way of presenting what could be a complicated company process or product in a clear, vibrant way which will retain the interest of the viewer. This is because motion graphics allow you to include the weapon’s grade marketing tool of visual storytelling. So much prettier and easier to keep up with than a boring Powerpoint presentation!
It is also playing into people’s natural laziness. Anyone would prefer to watch a video than spend time reading and processing a long bank of text.
For any online promotional video it is almost unheard of now not to incorporate a motion graphics intro and outro. It gives the video a nice professional polish and nicely differentiates from the content – whether it’s an explainer, promo or talking head video.
A great way of making graphs and other relatively boring business information alive is with an interactive infographic. Infographics themselves have revolutionised the way lots of dense information can be absorbed online – animating them with motion graphics increases this potential massively.
Typography motion graphics animations are another fun way of getting a lot of information across visually. Kinetic typography is basically a fancy technical name for “moving text”. These animations feature lots of text and other visually flying around the screen in an interesting way.
Animated logos are a fantastic way of making your brand come alive. It’s a great way for potential customers to engage in the first instance with your brand values.
These are in the same orbit as explainer videos, but come with a stronger marketing focus as they tend to be the first video on a webpage, explaining the piece of software or process. This type of web video is critical as it needs to suck the viewer in and helps to persuade them to purchase the product.
Motion graphics can be incorporated in all sorts of interesting ways to make TV adverts, corporate video and brand content look incredible. Some ideas are listed above. Motion graphics can turn even the most staid, dry talking head video into something really interesting.
After Effects is a visual effects, motion graphics and compositing software developed by Adobe. It’s considered to be the king of motion graphics – it’s very likely that you’ve seen half a dozen examples of its implementation just by watching TV ads or viewing a few brand films (or even slightly posher Youtube videos!)
Depending on their implementation within the finished product, motion graphics are generally tackled after the rough edit has been laid down in the software package.
Due to the prevalence of After Effects, many post production houses use its sister programme, Adobe PRemiere for editing thanks to the flawless integration.
Again this can depend on the desired function and use, but as most motion graphics videos are viewed online, we’d recommend brevity over anything else. People’s attention spans are short, particularly if they are viewing a marketing video – so it’s important to engage and make sure they don’t click away!
Motion graphics is essentially moving graphic design. They are still two different disciplines, but the nature of the web is that movement works very well, so more and more graphic designers are becoming involved in motion graphics.
The process for becoming a motion graphics artist is similar to a lot of careers in the creative industries, it requires as much persistence as skill. You might want to invest in a course or degree in motion design to start with, then it is critical to work on as many free and low pay motion graphic projects as possible to really cut your teeth. After this company’s are much more likely to take interest and develop your career further.
Get in touch for a quote
We’re a friendly bunch at Hightower and would love to hear from you
GET A QUOTE
