Corporate Animation Showcase 1 – The Thin Line
Welcome to the first Skwigly Corporate Animation Showcase. Each month we’ll be taking a look at some of the best corporate, promotional, explainer videos out there in the animation community.
Over the past few months a certain technique has become very prominent with a lot of animators and studios adopting it to create their films: The intriguing and elegant ‘thin line’ style where, quite simply, everything is drawn with a very thin line . Most apparent of these is Studio Buck’s new television commercial for Hive which, despite its captivating, smooth shapeshifting line, doesn’t quite fit in the category of ‘corporate’. So enough of that and onto something Buck have done that fits snugly into the showcase:
Buck’s film for Blue Cross Blue Shield shows off the use of the thin line to best effect. Gracing us with its presence every so often, it helps to control the blocks of colour that are so vividly created on screen. Using a theme that has be adopted by a lot of thin line users, the line is constantly drawing, never quite realising itself as we go from shot to shot. Even when it often travels off in another direction and starts somewhere else, the flow never ceases and becomes the dominant tangent within the film, tying it all together. A similar example to this comes from studio OuYeah! and their TV ident for What’s Cooking.
It seems fitting to add vibrant, bold blocks of colour to the seemingly basic line work and no better example can be found (not that I’ve seen) than ‘Brief Your Market’ from, Leeds based studio, First 10. Using solid colour to accentuate the line, it creates a really crisp look that clearly reflects the ideals of the technique. This time around there is no line ‘draw on’ which has become so familiar in a lot of thin line using films. It’s bouncy, floaty feel helps to bring the illustrations to life and even with a lot going on, on screen such as the multitude of speech bubbles and customers, we never loose focus on whats important.
The final film to feature in this month’s Corporate Animation Showcase comes from ‘Works That Work’ by Parachutes. Combining a whole manner of shifting transitions, this thin line work incorporates both the drawn-on line and the use of characters. The film bravely centers the action in the middle of the screen, allowing a lot of blank space around the edge. This composition harmoniously complements the thin line and really adds to the minimalistic qualities of the piece. The art of character animation in this style is beautifully created here, keeping the characters and movement simple. Moving the backgrounds independently really helps to move us from shot to shot without it getting overcomplicated in such a small viewing space. The idea of the drawn line comes back into play and again creating a great transition from shot to shot.
This technique is only going to become increasingly evident in the coming months, as more and more studios and animators jump on the bandwagon. In the corporate world more often than not an animation will have a factual message to get across. This technique can allow studios to play more with cartoon type ideals whilst keeping it looking crisp, clean and corporate. Hopefully we’ll see some more great results coming out from the ‘thin line’ technique.
If you have a great example of this style or any other corporate, promotional or explainer video that you’d like to show off then please do. Go to the Corporate Animation Showcase group on Vimeo and add yours now to share it with the whole animation community. We may even feature it on the Skwigly site in the future.