A picture speaks a thousand words, or so the old saying goes. But add animation to the mix, and some cleaver use of typography, and the scales might tip back in favour of words again.

With the help of design and animation the typography itself tells the story. It amplifies the emotions often hidden behind words (especially the written ones) and creates this compelling way of conveying meaning behind words. Most if not all are done using the Adobe program After Effects which requires experience and skill, but the way fonts (fontsize) and proximity are used could be of great inspiration to anyone trying to supercharge their ideas with emotion and immersion.

I’ve listed a dozen of the most impressive examples below. See for yourself how they reveal, amplify and convey emotion through typography (turn of your sound if you really want to grasp the concept instead of just the creative idea). Read the rest of this article »

A picture is worth a thousand words. Cliche as it might be, these infographics tell you it’s true. Communicating by pictures, illustrations and other styled data elements they can explain some of the most complex systems or events with great ease. As an added bonus, they allow you to ad an emotional layer to the data, or simply make it attractive and entertaining to look at! Read the rest of this article »

I am a HUGE fan of mash-ups artists such as GirlTalk and 2ManyDJ’s. The skill involved in mixing and mashing fragments of existing songs into new compositions just as much an artform as creating the original songs in my opinion. But the Eclectic Method group takes the art of mixing various video and audio fragments into a new song/video to a new level. Their remixes are creative and often carry a message (mostly anti-copyright) and a pretty good tune: Read the rest of this article »

An amazingly creative animation, introducing the sponsors of OFFF2009 ‘Fail with Grace’ International Festival for the Post-Digital Creation Culture (Portugal) by the Dutch animation agency Onesize. The result is an 8 minute promo where the logo’s become the stars of the animation as they are being experimented on. The animation carries a great message (watch it through to the end), best explained by the director himself: Read the rest of this article »

‘The Eight Irresistible Principles of Fun’ is a quick but pretty presentation of what ‘fun’ means to us, and how to feel more of it. The very colorful, visual style and animated ’slides’ give some nice pointers on how to bring more fun into your life (and ideas!). Made by Bungay Stanier.

The Panamerican School of Art and Design found a great way to challenge patterns. The concept is simple: create a grid or structured pattern, then give students/visitors/teachers an opportunity to actively engage in changing these patterns and create diverse, individual concepts:
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