To celebrate Video Igniter’s 100th blog post, we brainstormed a list of 100 ways animation can improve the world. Here, you’ll find creative new ways animation can be used to improve education, entertain people, make life a little easier, more delightful and even a few ways to help save the environment. Other ideas presented in here are tried and true use cases for companies to create and use custom animated videos to grow their businesses. After seeing all these examples of animations being used in our every day lives, it makes us think we’re only scratching the surface of what’s possible with animation.
1). Illustrate and animate an inside joke between your friends to share and remember the memory.
2). Animated video wedding invitations are more memorable, less expensive to produce and ship, and it’s environmentally friendly.
3). Animated instructions could show how to assemble IKEA furniture. It would make it easier for people to visually see and understand how the pieces are assembled, it would reduce support calls and it would eliminate the need to cut down trees to print paper booklets of instructions in multiple languages.
4). Animated street signs can communicate directions to all people including people who are illiterate people and who don’t speak the local language.
5). A shooting range with animated targets to shoot at would save the range from having to buy and replace physical moving targets that get destroyed after use.
6). An animated overview of your day or week ahead can show you your schedule of activities so that you know what to anticipate in your life. Animated visual reminders aid in recall and establishing a memory for the upcoming events of the day/week.
7). Instead of receiving a paper bill in the mail, you can receive a custom animated video that shows and explains all the costs associated with your bill. Animated infographics help visualize how your monthly usage changes over time and could even include tips to help save on utilities.
8). Animation is the fastest and easiest way to learn, understand and remember new information. Seems like the top search result for many questions on Google could eventually be various animated videos.
9). Instead of using static image posts, animated concert, tour, event and festival posters are becoming the norm because their subtle eye-catching animations are a new extension of the event’s personality, energy and excitement.
10). Animated screensavers for TVs, desktop computers and projectors have extended the usable life of the devices by helping to avoid burning pixels in the display. Of course, the best option is to just the devices off when you’re not using them.
11). During the peak of COVID, many people wanted to understand exactly what the virus did inside the body to make it so dangerous and contagious. People also wanted to understand how the new vaccines worked to protect people. If you were to have a scientist speak directly to people on camera and explain what was happening, most people would be lost. You can’t film what’s going on because it’s too small to see with a normal camera. But animation can be used to show exactly what’s happening in the body while the scientist narrates what is happening in simple, user-friendly science terms.
12). Instead of answering the same customer support questions again and again, create animated videos that explain the answers to your most commonly asked questions to help reduce your customer support costs. This video we helped produce for Bridjit helps customers understand how to set the product up at home.
13). Children’s ebooks designed for colorful tablets can make use of the powerful screen to add subtle motion design to the illustrations on each page to enhance the viewer’s perception of the world they’re reading about.
14). If you run a medical practice, creating animated videos that explain procedures and your clinic’s policies will help your patients be better informed about what their procedure entails. Your team will also have their time freed up from having to explain things like payment details again and again.
15). Animation can show the history of countries and cultures around the world.
16). Animation can be used to tell visual stories during DJ sets.
17). Watching animated visuals can help you pace your breathing and induce a state of relaxation.
18). Create a short animated intro for your video podcast or YouTube series to heighten the production value of your content.
19). Concert sized animated holograms. By displaying animations on massive transparent screens, you create the effect of a larger than life hologram.
20). Looping animations can give users of your app something to watch while they are forced to be patient for content to load or for a process to complete. This helps placate users and keeps more of them in your app while the process completes instead of losing their attention to another app on their phone.
21). Projecting animations onto buildings can make the buildings look like they are moving and changing form.
22). Animated diagrams can be posted as animated GIFs or videos to help people understand processes. Anticipate seeing more of these in educational textbooks within the coming years.
23). Animated e-learning courses teach content fast and efficiently while making it easier for people to remember the content (compared to watching a lecturer drone on).
24). Use animation to run interactive scenarios. Animated scenarios in VR enable people to have a more immersive experience when getting exposure to new or dangerous experiences.
25). Modern robots use a digital screen to display fake eyes that can animate and express emotion and information. What’s more, the full screen can be overtaken to display full screen animations to help the user understand information like recipes or what the weather is going to be.
26). Animations of 3D models can be used to show the inner workings of a product in a way that a camera couldn’t possibly film.
27). 3D animation enables real estate developers and investors to see the building designs they’re developing. This makes it easier feel and explore what the places would be like so that changes can be made before the project begins. It also gives them the ability to visualize what kind of impact those changes will have before committing them to the official design.
28). Instead of hiring extra sales people to travel and pitch your business, develop an animated sales video to act as a virtual demo presenter. Send your video to eligible prospects, follow up with all of them and use your experienced sales people to close the deal.
29). Animation can be used to show users of your website or app what to do next. Animation guides their attention to the next step and shows them what to do.
30). Projecting animations on your dinner creates a fun, memorable interactive experience.
31). Motion graphics animations are used to bring attention to details you want to highlight while keeping your video content engaging.
32). Animation costs used to be out of reach for most companies. Now, it’s possible to afford to produce your own animated video series for your brand.
33). Animated light up shirts that react to music.
34). Augmented reality enables you to see something through your phone or tablet’s screen that doesn’t exist in reality. Some new tech-forward fashion companies are creating clever ways to integrate augmented reality features into your clothing.
35). Spinning LED fans can give the appearance of 3D animated objects floating in the air.
36). While you are standing in an elevator, an animated screen can display upcoming events in the building, nearby and what the weather and traffic are like for the day.
37). Animated diagrams display health tracking stats on phones, tablets and smart watches to show you how your health stats change over time.
38). Lightform animated murals.
39). When AR hits the masses, we’ll have animated navigation instructions projected in front of us.
40). Thousands of drones flying together can produce 3D animated visuals in the sky.
41). Animated maps in malls and subways can help visually direct people in the right direction and show when trains are entering and leaving the station in real time.
42). Comic books for ebook readers can now include animated panels!
43). The jury is still out on this one but we think we’ll still some interesting things happen in the world of animated NFTs.
44). Museums use animated videos to enhance museum displays by helping to explain the historic, artistic or scientific contribution each piece delivered to the world.
45). Meow Wolf.
46). Short animated motion graphics can be used to explain the pros and cons of each side of an argument on a voting ballot. A lot of people don’t take the time to read and understand both sides of the things they vote for. Using animated visuals to quickly explain the change that would happen on either side of the voting initiative would increase the number of well informed voters.
47). Animated infographics can help people understand data, information and trends because visualizing that content helps people become able appreciate something they couldn’t fathom without some sort of visual context.
48). Animated marketing videos can help drive awareness for your business. Using proper video marketing and video promotion techniques, you can get millions of people to visit your website in a short amount of time. Better still, when you work with a team like Video Igniter, we have the technical skills to see which videos and audiences are driving the most sales so you can optimize your promotion budget to rapidly grow your sales. Get in touch if you’re interested in video promotion for your company.
49). Animated cartoon mascots are now easier to develop and include across your various media assets. Bring a consistent personality to your content and make your brand instantly recognizable when people see your character.
50). Animated sheet music can automatically progress so that the right notes are always displayed directly in front of the musician. No more need for your eyes to keep track of the music across different lines or pages. Best part is: no more turning pages in the middle of playing a song.
51). Creating an animated corporate video is a cost-effective, high impact to explain what your business does, what your values are and how you can help your customers.
52). Animated product videos can help you show off what your product looks like and how it functions. Adding one to your sales page helps to educate customers and ultimately leads to more sales.
53). Creating an app explainer video helps people quickly evaluate if your app is right for them – or at least if worth downloading it and giving it a try.
54). This glass keyboard displays interactive animations beneath the keys that can respond your touch when you type.
55). Animated lyric videos enable people to understand the words of their favorite songs. It’s an artistic animated sing along.
56). Improve the conversion rate of your landing pages and sales page with an animated video. Here’s how.
57). Animated lights on runways enable pilots to see where they’re supposed to land – even when visibility is poor.
58). Animation is great for adding eye catching content to your sizzle reel to quickly attract people’s interest and motivate them to want to learn more about your agency, video production company, event production company, etc.
59). The Metaverse is 100% powered by animation. Fully immersive VR interactive worlds are created entirely through animation!
60). Services like Bitable enable to create video resumes with eye-catching animated infographics and statistics about he individual to help them stand out.
61). In the ocean of live action social media content filmed on smartphone camera, animated content stands out from the rest. Eye-candy thumbnails encourage more people to tap on your video to see what it’s all about.
62). Created an animated Christmas or holiday card to show what your family has been up to over the last year.
63). Animated trail maps can show different hiking routes and dynamically display images of plants, animals and scenic lookouts to anticipate on each route.
64). Instead of bugging your clients by sending them marketing emails once a week, contact them less often and send them higher quality content when you do reach out. Consider sending a short educational animated video to your clients once a month or once each quarter to share value with them and provide a soft reminder that your company exists.
65). It’s possible to help speed up long lines at T.S.A. security checkpoints, voting booths, theme parks, baseball stadiums etc, by displaying messages to people on animated screens by informing people to have their tickets and ID ready for scanning. Displaying a list of prohibited items can also help speed up lines and save security teams from having to explain policies to each individual that comes through the line.
66). New Years Eve countdowns around the world are powered by custom animated videos projected on large buildings or displayed on gigantic screens.
67). What if the graphic design on your shirt could move? Maybe it’s an angel with wings that flap. Or a cyborg whose eye blinks at you. But how does it work? A specially designed shirt contains a special pocket to hold your phone. Your phone’s screen animates through a hole in the front of the shirt making it look like the shirt’s printed design is actually animated and moving!
68). LaserCubes can animate designs and patterns on buildings far away.
69).
Pixel sticks are LED bars that produce animations when you move them. Beautiful for live performances and time lapse photography.
70). Specially designed mechanical lightbulbs can make it look like snowflakes are animating down the face of your home during the holiday season.
71). Projectors can be used to project animated shadow puppet shows.
72). Send a personalized animated video to your clients to thank them for all the business they did with you over the previous year. It’s possible to create an animated video template and provide custom data to render out an individual video for each person so that it includes their name in the presentation of the video. Here are some examples:
73). Decorative water fountains and pulsed light can be animated together to display animated images falling through the air.
74). Your bank could send you an animated infographic instead of a paper statement. The animated infographic could show trends in your spending habits to help you understand where your money is going, where you can save money, and how much your money could earn if you invested $X/month.
75). Projectors can beam animated guidance in real time onto a pool table to help you see how you should line up your shot.
76). Dental clinics could send animated stop motion videos of their patient’s mouth X-rays to show how they’ve changed over time.
77). Animated 3D models enable people to zoom around and explore the universe from the comfort of their local planetarium.
78). Gyms and quick serve restaurants have monitors that display animated motion graphics to educate, entertain and inform people during their idle moments in the venue.
79). The Pepper’s Ghost Illusion is an old but very clever way to create animated holograms that look like a ghost.
80). Animation is what enables us to play 2D, 3D, AR and VR games!
81). 3D Zoetropes are some of the coolest moving objects you can ever look at. It’s like a physical 3D animated flip book:
82). Programmable animated LED shirt lets you type out and sketch images on your phone that are shown on an animated marquee display built into the shirt.
83). Animated flipbooks are fun to play with and mesmerizing to watch. A company called Flipboku designed some cool new animated flip books that you can color in yourself and another kind of flipbook that can display up to 6 different animations, depending how you flip through the book.
84). Animation is even used in magic tricks! Japanese magician Katsuda Masuda has developed several amazing animated magic tricks that need to be seen to believe. Check out this one where he punctures a hole into a picture and makes it animate and move across the picture:
85). Indoor galaxy lights can simulate the effect of projecting an animated galaxy light and star pattern across your ceiling.
86). Your credit card company could send an animated infographic each month to explain your statement and show you how much money you can save by paying off your credit card debt quicker.
87). Animated lights projected on the ground inform airplane passengers when it’s their turn to line up to get on the plane.
88). Pseudo 3D animated billboards. More of this, please.
89). Interactive animated flooring.
90). Creating an explainer video for your startup can help your leads and prospects quickly understand what your company does and how it can benefit them if they use it. If you want to help attract new users and customers for your startup, contact us about creating a startup explainer video.
91). Old appliances used to use liquid crystal displays to produce digital images of the time and settings on a device. Now a days, seamless digital animations are part of the aesthetic of modern appliances:
92). Animations aren’t just digital projections. Physical objects can also animate. Check out these artistic animations:
93). Creating an animated logo for your brand is a creative way to articulate your brand’s personality with visual motion design.
94). Animated language learning programs can make language learning fun. Animated visuals can help the viewer enhance their memory recall and retention to speed up the learning process.
95). The internet technology “CSS” and the “SVG” file format are used to create crisp animations that can be displayed on websites to delight visitors. There’s one at the top of almost all the blog posts on our site.
96). Abstract psychedelic animated visuals are becoming their own form of hypnotic art:
97). Animated traffic lights countdown to show drivers when the signal is going to change. This design isn’t legal in the US but countries around the world are experimenting to see what impact this design can offer.
98). Audi’s ‘Swarm’ lighting concept reimagines what the light system on the back of passenger vehicles would look like if they were replaced with a solid screen. Animated visuals not only show when the turn signal is on or when the driver is breaking, they also inform drivers behind the Audi how hard the driver is hitting the brakes by showing a dramatic increase in the amount of red animated lines on the back of the vehicle.
99). BMW’s color changing concept car uses e-ink displays on the exterior to display 32 different colors. The newest prototype can even display multiple colors at a time which animate across the surface of the car.
100). Project LFX – animated projection mapping for games, movies, and checking apps like email, the weather and your calendar. Unfortunately, the company shut down but hopefully this project gets revived some day.
100 Ways Animation Can Improve The World Summary
If you’ve made it this far, you can now see that animation is everywhere! From games to education and beyond, animation’s presence in our world isn’t just limited to movies on our screens. Animation is becoming an integrated and interactive part of the physical world around us. Something tells us this is just the beginning…
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