In design, trends can change rapidly. One of the things I’ve been intrigued about is animation, particularly logo animation, which I’m seeing more and more recently. For a while, we’ve seen growth in things like animated GIFs across social media, and with platforms like Instagram becoming much more popular with brands, the internet is becoming much more visual.
Why logo animation?
The upsurge in animation, I think, is twofold. Firstly, people’s behaviour in absorbing online information is changing – or maybe I should spin that around and say that marketers are becoming more aware of people’s thought processes. We respond differently to visual content, and so it makes sense that marketing should appeal to that part of our nature. If you look at social media, for example, video is becoming the norm. In fact, if you create a piece of written content, and then present the same content in video format, you’ll notice that the video content gets the most views and responses.
Why? We spend a lot of time scrolling through social media on our phones, tablets, and screens. When we see movement and colour, it does something to our brains – we are compelled to pause, and look at that piece of content.
So if your logo is in animated form, wherever you present it online, be that as an avatar on social media, as part of a video presentation, or even as a header or signature of an email – it’s much more likely to grab people’s attention.
With the internet being such a busy place, animation is such a great way to make your brand stand out amongst the masses.
Accessible Technology
The second reason for the popularity of animation is that the technology in creating it has become much more accessible. In times past, the tech which we used to create images, particularly moving images, was clunky and complicated. That’s changing, rapidly. We are now able to make such high-quality animated content, there is no excuse not to. You can, at a simple level, use GIFs via your smartphone for all of your social media platforms. You can create movement to your text using applications within programmes like Canva, etc.
If you’re not taking advantage of that tech, it won’t be very long before you’re seen as ‘old fashioned’, as even smaller brands are using animation techniques for their own branding.
Brand perception
You only have a short window of time to get the attention of our viewers – it takes a few seconds for someone to decide whether or not your content is worth viewing. If you can make someone pause to look at your content by using animation, they are much more likely to remember you, and recognise you again in the future. And that goes a long way in getting a regular audience, who will not only remember you, but buy from you too.
