With the advent of 5G upon us, animation and motion graphics will soon become the norm on desktop and mobile websites. Is your site ready?
Adding animation effects to your website or app isn’t easy. While good motion work can increase on-page time and add to your brand’s identity, poor work can do significant damage to your business. Shoddy motion effects look tacky at best, and at worst disorient your visitors and affect your UX.
If you don’t know where to start, consider these motion and animation trends that consumers are responding to in 2022.
Animated Logos
If you’re wary about jumping headfirst into animation on your website, you can start by making an animated version of your logo. Big brands have been doing this for years (for example, the Spotify logo), but they’ve largely placed their animations in ads. Now, we’re seeing more animated logos on websites and social media.
Animating your logo is an easy way to make your brand more memorable, and it won’t interfere with the UX of your site.
Linework
Lines are some of the most pleasing animations, and they can be as simple or as complex as you’d like. The minimal look of linework is easy for viewers to digest, and lines can double as functional parts of your UX. Use line graphics to direct visitors to your menus, frame pages, or provide formatting for articles.
Or, use lines to tell a story and create emotion, as the hotel brand Hyatt does in this video.
VR Animation
Virtual reality (VR) might still seem like a futuristic concept, but it’s entering the realm of “normal” in 2022. 5G will make VR elements accessible right from your site or app.
Not many sites are implementing VR yet, so adding an experience to yours could generate a lot of hype (backlinks!) and traffic. Consider making a VR experience such as the following:
– Give your customers a tour of your workspace
– Do a 360˚ VR product demo
– Create a VR ad
Microsoft recently released a VR tour that makes data centers seem much more interesting than you’ve ever imagined. You can check it out here.
Grain
Grain is the texture work that’s making the most waves in 2022. Why? Because it makes images seem vintage and minimal even if they aren’t.
Grain adds authenticity and wisdom to just about anything, and it really pops in animated form. Grain animation evokes feelings of calm and groundedness, which is good for brands trying to establish themselves in the market.
Grain motion graphics can also be used to add loads of retro personality and depth to images. Day Trip’s website is a good example (and yes, that homepage image is animated!).
Scroll-Triggered Animations
Scroll-triggered animations combine storytelling and interactivity into a scrollable experience. Basically, animations and graphics are triggered as you scroll down a page, giving a website more depth (it’s like the internet’s version of a pop-up book).
Scroll animations can be very engaging—they practically beg you to keep scrolling. Take a look at Gucci’s very stylish scrollable experience as an example. Gucci uses graphics exclusively on their page, but you can also add scroll-triggered animations to text-based pages too, as Zoomanity does here.
Moving Text
Text in motion, also known as kinetic typography, combines text-based content and animation into one engaging experience. As the demand for video grows, we’ll see a lot more kinetic typography, mostly because text-based videos are easy to produce. Moving text is also finding its place on websites, and it’s often incorporated into animated logos.
Check out how Kvell incorporates moving text into their homepage here. Notice that there isn’t much going on besides the text on their page. That’s because moving text requires more effort from your visitors. It’s important not to have clutter on your pages if you’re incorporating text in motion, or it may be overwhelming.
Your Website, in Motion
How do you add animation and motion graphics to your website? You can hire someone to create custom graphics for you, but it’s often easier to use templates. There are loads of pre-made templates online that can add stunning effects to your website or video content.
If you’re not a web designer, you can even use Adobe After Effects templates to create animations and then export them for use on a website. Pretty nifty.
No matter how you choose to animate your website, don’t let 2022 pass you by without implementing at least one of the above trends. As 5G takes over, animation and motion graphics will be necessary to keep your traffic engaged.
