How insane is our Senior Designer, Will, you ask? Have a read and find out for yourself, as he shares his thoughts on our June theme of Animation.
| What does Animation mean to you? Good question. Animation means a lot to me. You see, Animation and I go way back. Let’s rewind back to my high school days. I was strutting through the computer labs one day, when all of a sudden, I tripped (I was actually pushed) and my hands came crashing down on a vacant keyboard. On the computer screen above, a small blue circle sparked to life and began to move across the screen. “It can’t be that easy, can it?” I whispered. I grabbed the student next to me by his shoulders, and shook him violently; “Tell me it’s not that easy to animate!”. The student broke free from my grip, straightened his glasses and reached out to shake my hand. “Congratulations Will, you’ve just given birth to your first animation.” and the class erupted in applause. The girl who pushed me over earlier apologised for bullying me for the past four years, and is now my wife. So, yeah, I guess you could say that Animation means a lot to me. Next question! What are your thoughts on Animation vs. Static? Animation makes everything great. In fact, a study conducted by myself at a BBQ on the weekend found that 100% of participants would rather watch something that’s animated as opposed to something that’s static. I know, it’s crazy right. Don’t believe me? Let’s see what science has to say.Did you know that the human brain is hardwired for motion? We see something moving and we just have to look at it. It’s an evolutionary runoff that kept our ancestors alive for literally ages. Name one thing that static has done for you lately. Fun fact, did you know that static images are actually invisible to anyone under the age of 21? Science not your thing? How about some math. On average, there are 24 frames of animation per second. Compare that to static which is 1 frame forever. You do the math! Static is that weird guy who just shows up at your party uninvited and sticks around way after everyone else is gone, and even starts to help clean up. You’re thinking, “Just go home dude, we’re only pretending to clean up so that you get the hint that the party is over!”. That’s right, static, it’s over. Get the hint already! Are you animating anything cool at the moment? Funny you ask. I am as a matter of fact. You see, I own a small human, a child if you will. Combine that with some pretty lax parenting skills on my behalf and you get YouTube Kids on the iPad. Being the responsible father that I am, I tend to start his binge watching sesh with something educational. This plan fails instantly due to the fact that every child over the age of one can seamlessly navigate an iPad. In under 12 seconds, education is ditched and unscripted; low budget videos involving slime or surprise toys prevail. Then it hit me. If I make an animation aimed at him, he may finally respect me and call me “Dad”, instead of “that guy that lives in our house”. I’ve got it! I’ll make a surprise toy slime video! I instantly vomited in my mouth and decided to just create a kids animation instead. What started off as a thinly veiled attempt to win my sons respect, soon turned into a flourishing empire; The Rocklings. I now have over 34 views on my channel and my son calls me “Mr. Murtagh” – result! |
| Can you answer one question about Animation and Digital Signage without sounding completely insane? Fine! The world is changing rapidly and the quality of content that people expect is continuously on the rise. Animation in Digital Signage is the new norm. Without it, the chances of someone actually stopping and paying attention to your message is pretty slim. The key is to make your message memorable. Storytelling plays a big role in this. Your story needs to connect to your target audience on an emotional level, otherwise it’ll simply be forgotten. As most Digital Signage you encounter in the wild doesn’t have audio, it’s important to let your visuals do the talking. The alternative is packing a screen full of text, which, let’s face it, has very little eyeball appeal. Any final thoughts? None whatsoever. |
