A Quick Walkthrough to 16 Different Animation Styles for Your Explainer Videos
Animation has been around for a hundred years or more.
Many new types of methods have been introduced and reintroduced, which means animation studios and companies can always keep growing the list of animation styles they can create.
In this article, you can find 16 animation styles that are preferred in the explainer video industry.
Brief Walkthrough On Making Amazing Explainer Videos
Animated explainer videos provide stunning visual media in an attempt to promote a promotional piece to an audience.
An explainer video, is also proven to be the best device to maintain audience retention — making them the center of attention that is hard to pass or skip due to how colorful and engaging they are.
Precisely why animated explainer videos are commonly found swirling across many marketing platforms today.
Companies are drawn to this short movie format to narrate their stories; Explainer videos enable advertisers to penetrate almost anything on the web by using them!
A-List of 15 Different Types of Explainer Video
As time progresses univocally to technological advancement, animation styles now branched out and have expanded.
Here are 15 types of animation that are currently used in this industry.
Whiteboard
The most underestimated and yet one of the most effective styles to use.
Whiteboard animation is a straightforward format out of the bunch; 2D animation simplifies complex concepts in a minimalistic design. This style is perfect for corporations and internal training.
Motion Graphics
One of the most popular styles out of 15 types. Despite the simple outlook of this style, motion graphics use components like moving text and lively music.
This type of animation is usually excellent for commercial or promotional purposes, which is why this style is becoming very appealing.
3D Motion Graphics
Similar to motion graphics. 3D Motion graphics means integrating 3D elements to create an animation that is more lifelike because characters can be viewed from different angles, making 3D animation look incredibly realistic.
3D animation has textures that make them appear solid and can be placed into live scenes and elements
Kinetic Typography
Kinetic typography style presents moving letters and numbers. Kinetic typography is effective in expressing ideas in a manner that is very easy to follow.
Paper Cutout Animation
Have you ever made objects out of paper and tried to move them around? What you did is essentially make a cutout animation.
Paper cutout animation features characters and objects that are cut out of paper, hence how they get the name.
Digital Cutout Animation
Digital cutout animation is the refined version of cutout animation.
The style incorporates texture, bright color, more shading, and layering, those details you find lacking in a simple cutout animation.
The benefit? It’s easier for you to change the animation later in a few months if there’s any change.
Cartoon Animation
Many still misunderstood and think cartoon animation is designed only for kids. You know what? It’s not.
Cartoon animation is very versatile; it enables you to incorporate more colors while integrating complex ideas, just like these two videos.
Silhouette Animation
Silhouette animation features dark characters against a white background.
It is one of the oldest styles, and even if so, this style is unrelenting and has unyielding potential for your video projects in the future.
Animated Music Video
The experience of watching an animated music video is precisely like watching a music MV.
Instead of seeing a person singing, you will see the animated version of the singer.
Basically, this style is created to make it easier for you to sing along while watching a video clip.
Live-Action + Animation
It combines real-life action that blends in with animated elements. Typically you will find real humans interacting with animated characters or floating characters and words featured on the same frame.
Stop Motion Animation
As the name suggests, this particular style involves setting a standstill object or character in a particular posture against a background and taking a picture.
Animated Stick Figures
This style features characters drawn in stick figures. The simplistic design is aimed to help you address problems in its animated format more engagingly.
Animated Infographics
Presenting dense data to a mass audience is hard. Try to think out of the box and show them in its animated version.
Animated infographics are a perfect step up from a regular presentation.
This style is best for when you’ve got a lot of details to get through in a short amount of time, and you don’t want your audience to be bored.
Screen Capture
Screen capture animation is the ideal type to showcase a product’s UI design.
Screen capture covers all the screen visual interactive touchpoints that the user is going to use while navigating from point A to B.
In short, it helps to improve the overall customer experience while using certain products.
Mixed Animation
This video, for example, is a combination of three different styles, blending cutout, cartoon, and screen capture.
The result is a stunning video burst with colors.
By courageously combining different styles, the result can be a very eye-catching end product that might surprise you.
Each style of animation fulfills different needs, certain types of videos appeal to separate marketing objectives, making some more effective and function better than others.
And with such various types of explainer videos and animation styles out there, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed which one you should produce.
But as you might have already realized, it all depends on the purpose of the video your making.
For further reference of these high-performing types, go to Breadnbeyond’s Youtube channel, which has hundreds of samples you can watch for free!
What do you think of the 15 styles of animation so far? Which one is your favorite?
