Have you ever considered creating an animation to build brand awareness?
What about using motion graphics or animated infographics?
For businesses that aren’t particularly savvy when it comes to multimedia marketing, things like graphic design, animation and the like can often be perplexing. It’s difficult to understand an industry when you don’t work within it, which is where I hope my business blog series will help.
By featuring businesses that provide services you never knew existed, or that you hadn’t considered might be useful to your business before, my aim is to provide key industry insights.
As the mantra goes – ‘Do what you do best – and outsource the rest’. But first – know what it is that you’re outsourcing for, and understand how exactly it can provide value to your business…
For Laura Crossett of Blurbox Media and Design in Magherafelt, design is what she does best, with a whole host of services available for local businesses. With a Bachelor in Design (Design for Visual Communication) from Ulster University’s Magee campus and an MA in the same, Laura has built up a varied portfolio over the past few years.
Most businesses will be familiar with basic graphic design, which involves branding things like stationary and creating business logos.
“I can basically design anything for print – pop-up stands, billboards, posters, leaflets, van livery…” says Laura.
Having previously spent a year working as a website designer and graphic designer at the Presbyterian Church of Ireland in Belfast, Laura also provides web design services. Using a website template, she designs the key elements of the site, personalising it for each client to ensure it’s exactly how they want it.
Most people have a good grasp of what’s involved in these particular services, but when it comes to animation, things are often a little less clear. As a rapidly growing industry however, and a tool increasingly used by brands large and small, animation is something that’s worth finding out about.
Animations can be a really creative and fun way to build up awareness and a bit of a buzz about your brand. They can as long or as short as you like, but know that the longer and more complex they are, the higher the cost. (Which goes without saying).
One Blurbox Media and Design client who benefited from such an animation was JB Tyres in Tobermore, who wanted a character to help promote their brand. The result was TRED…
“James at JB Tyres knew he wanted a character for his animation – something fun to advertise the company, like Tony the Tiger or Buzz Lightyear,” says Laura. “After discussing ideas, I did a few initial sketches and then refined those. I also named the character TRED and created a logo as well.”
Like any piece of promotional content, it’s important to know the target audience and also, where the content will be used. For JB Tyres, the animation was to be included on a DVD, so was to serve as a fun advertisement for the business.
“It had to be quite short and was aimed primarily at people working with tractors, so I focused on incorporating agricultural elements into the animation for that specific audience,” says Laura.
“I worked out a rough storyboard and took them through it, drawing out what the story would be and giving JB Tyres an idea of the movement that would be included in the final animation. I then scanned TRED into the computer and built another character as well.”
As part of the process, the characters were drawn in Illustrator in the various poses which would be needed for the animation, with head and arms drawn separately. For this particular project, grass, tractors and a background of Slieve Gallion was also required.
“I put those pieces into After Effects – a special software for animation and special effects,” says Laura. “You basically build the animation up in layers and decide what’s to be in the foreground and background. Next, I sorted out timing for the animation and sourced music – which is either bought in or sourced for free.”
A script is also written for the animation, which is then exported as a media clip for the client, so they can put it on their website, YouTube channel, or anywhere else they want it.
This, of course, is just one example of what can be done, as Blurbox Media and Design provides a range of animation options. These include:
– Brand animation: Animating business logos for promo videos, YouTube, presentations etc.
– Motion graphic animation: Involves the use of multiple graphic content e.g. animated characters, graphics, photographs, typography and film.
– Infographic animation: Animating infographics for use in presentations, tutorials, social media etc.
– Illustration animation: ‘A storyboard with motion’.
“Animation is a fun and friendly way to increase brand awareness,” says Laura. “You can also use at events and on social media. It’s just a really memorable way to get your brand in front of people.”
Visit: http://www.blurbox.net/
Find Blurbox on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BlurboxMediaAndDesign/
Check out YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuahO4RYseJqTm29VsI34WQ?feature=watch