Corporate Animation Showcase 8 – Festive Edition
Happy holidays to all you Corporate Animation Showcase readers and welcome to a very festive edition. We’ve all been littered with companies’ Christmas E-cards, videos and messages over the last few weeks so this month we’ve taken the opportunity to hunt out some of the animation industry’s best deserved and ingenious Christmas adverts and mail-outs.
This month’s festive foray wouldn’t be complete without showing off the incredible effort from one of the UK’s most pioneering studios, Bird Box and their animated Christmas mail-out. Sit back, press play and be amazed. Including actual animation in what would normally be a plain old direct mail-out is far beyond originality and will certainly help Bird Box to stand out from the crowd this season. As the card pops open, little cards flip round in the house window allowing the three figures to sing and dance to the audio which is astonishingly synced to the millisecond. Just as you think it’s over and your jaw can’t get any wider a poof of snow explodes from the chimney showering the scene. Anyone opening this little bundle of animated joy this Christmas will undoubtedly be impressed and it shows how inventive you sometimes have to be to get the attention of clients.
[vimeo 113385533]Second up this month is a clever entry from Napoleon Creative with their Christmas Advent film. As if one animation wasn’t enough they created an animation a day for the whole advent season. That’s 25 animations strung together and perfectly transitioned from one to another. Speaking to Skwigly Lewis Darby, NC’s Creative Director, explains it was a “great way to challenge staff and increase the reach of the video over more days”. By releasing another added animation to the film over a number of days it’s the perfect way to reel in viewers and keep them hungry for more. The fluid transitions and very simple-yet-design-led graphics really help to keep the video fresh and it has a great 2D/3D sensibility really showing off what the studio can achieve in such a small amount of time; A digital advent calendar that magically becomes more and more each day.
[vimeo 114073180]Last but by no means least is the very clever and ‘thought outside the box’ festive animation from Emanuele Columbo with How to Wish Your clients a Merry Christmas. A very original and explainer-esque style to this entry that goes through the process of how to effectively wish all your clients a Merry Christmas. It’s a process we all go through, making it instantly relatable whether you’re a client or a creative working hard for that ‘insanely tight deadline’. The sharp and graphical look to this film shows slick transitions and great character animation. Keeping everything simple and including motifs that everybody relates to, even the Christmas cat, really helps to make the video appealing. Using his own style makes this not only a fun greeting but also a mini showreel of ideas and content that can impress any potential clients with ease.
What an exciting job it was to go through all the entries for this month’s showcase. Producing an E-card or quick GIF is an easy way to send out your greetings but thinking outside the box will certainly gain you lots more attention. As all these examples have shown, with a little bit of ingenuity and a great team you can pull off the best festive greeting that will help propel you into the New Year.
Its been a cracker of a first year of the Corporate Animation Showcase and we’ve really enjoyed sifting through the hundreds of videos we’ve received on the Vimeo group. We can’t wait to see more and delve further into the hidden depths of corporate animation. Next month we have a really special showcase that includes an interview with Manchester-based studio Kilogramme telling us all about their own corporate animation adventures, so keep your peepers peeled for that.
Don’t forget to head over to the Corporate Animation Showcase Vimeo page to add your films and you could be featured in the next showcase: https://vimeo.com/groups/corporateanimation