Technology Animation

Every project that we make is completely unique depending on the brief, the requirements and the style. Because of this, we don’t have standardised pricing. The factors that will influence the price of your project are typically how complex it is, how quickly you need it, how long it needs to be and what design style you want to go for. A simple, icon based 2D motion graphics video will be more cost effective than a highly complex, 3D animation with multiple translations for a global market. We put together a no-obligation proposal that shows different approaches to solving your brief, and the different costs associated with those solutions. So whether you have a budget in mind, or not, you can see exactly what the options will cost and what they’ll look like. We’ve been quoting animation work for nearly a decade now, so if you give us a call, or drop us a message, we’ll be able to give you a ballpark estimate pretty quickly.

The short answer: there isn’t a set time that it takes. A slightly longer answer: it all depends on what you’re looking to achieve. Casting multiple language voiceovers, having various different sizes and lengths and using 3D animation will all add complexity to your timeline - but not necessarily length. We can scale the production team to meet your deadline, but more hands to help may mean an increase in budget. If your project needs to be approved by a compliance team (or similar) then this should also be factored into the timelines, so we can seek approval throughout the process, rather than right at the end once everything's finalised. Typically, we say 8 weeks is a nice sweet spot which gives enough time between design stages for reviews and feedback before moving onto the next stage. This is a luxury we’re rarely afforded, so if you have an urgent deadline in mind, don’t hesitate to drop us an email or give us a call to see how feasible your plan is.

No, we don’t believe it’s possible to package a solution to your brief in a specified time frame. Do you need 30 seconds or 60? How do you choose between styles, how do voiceovers and translations add to the costs? It would be a myriad of choices that are overwhelming! And then what happens when the script increases from 60 seconds to 70 seconds? It quickly becomes a mess. 

We ask a series of questions to find out exactly what you’re looking to achieve. Then we scope out 3 options that will solve your problem with an increasing budget. This gives you an “all-in” figure, and doesn’t change once agreed.

The scope of work will depend on your requirements. The absolute minimum package would be project management, design and animation. A more typical package would be to help write the script, set the style through mood boards and style frames, create sketched and final storyboards and then animate those boards. We’d include voice over, music and sound design. A more comprehensive package might include subtitling, translating and bespoke audio composition. Everything we make is completely unique to your requirements, so we don’t have a ‘standard’ package, as we’re yet to find a ‘standard’ project!

We like to think that we keep you absolutely involved in the project without adding to your workload. On a typical project, we’d check-in weekly to present work, gather feedback and discuss next steps. On projects with a short timeline, there may be weeks where we check-in twice a week so we can make decisions quickly and effectively. We may need your technical experts involved at the beginning where the focus is on the scripts, or we may need a product manager or stakeholder involved throughout. Typically, the weekly meetings are 30 minutes, and we’d recommend 30-60 minutes of internal meetings to discuss further and gather feedback from any other stakeholders involved.

Yes, the brilliance of animation is that we have a range of options when it comes to representing software and digital tools. We can use screen captures, design files and wireframes to convey your interface with complete accuracy. Or we can modify and stylise the user interface for various purposes like being simpler and easier to follow. We can highlight your pixel-perfect UI using motion graphics, or use 2D animation to conceptualise more abstract aspects of your service or product. We’re well versed on working with brand guidelines to make communications that look, feel and speak as an extension of your brand.

Our process starts with an indepth technical briefing to understand your product and liaise with your technical team for any relevant information we may need. This information is captured as a detailed document that serves as our blueprint for the project. Throughout the production process we have very clear, defined stages that each end with a review, feedback and amendments cycle to ensure that at every step we’re being accurate and on brand. This ensures that everything we make is as efficient as possible so there is absolutely no wasted design or animation time.

Absolutely. This would be one of our initial questions so that we can strategically plan for this within our production. We have a process for designing and creating assets that can be cropped to various aspect ratios to cover different usages on different platforms. We can also use a modular approach to the content of the animation, so sections can be easily removed (or added) to create versions of different lengths for different usages. Each version would be optimised for the intended use case to ensure best practises, including colours, compressions, size, duration and subtitling or other accessibility considerations.

We believe in open collaboration throughout a project. When we deliver your final animation, you can request complete access to all production files. We simply ask to be able to use non-confidential information as part of our portfolio and case studies. For clients who would like to manage updates internally, we can provide source files and some level of documentation to help support you in future efforts. However, please keep in mind that some elements may be licensed and we are restricted from sharing on copyright and licensing restrictions. We also have a specialised workflow, especially with modular content and versioning, that makes our process extremely efficient but might not be user-friendly to other animation artists or internal teams. If there is specific information you would like to be future-proofed, we can devise ways to keep the files easy to update for users of any ability. You may find it more cost effective for us to handle revisions, but we’re always happy to discuss the best approach for your specific needs.

Security and confidentiality are foundation elements of our workflow, not afterthoughts. We’re often working with pre-release information or private and sensitive information through our work with internal and external communications. Our security process starts with formal NDAs signed between us and you, and any of the wider production team (like voiceover artists). We implement strict, user-based permissions to make sure that only the necessary team members can access the required information for them to deliver their part of the project. All file sharing happens through secure enterprise programs like Microsoft Teams, and any file is password protected. Once a project is complete, we remove files from the cloud and we can delete any supplied materials that are no longer needed. It’s worth noting that the best security practices are prevention rather than cure - only share with us files, or excerpts, that are fundamental to our work. 

Our team has worked together for years and we’ve built our standards, and ISO 9001 certified process around security and safety of information. We understand the critical importance of data security and treat your sensitive information with the same level of care that you do.

Style is one of the very first decisions you’ll make based on the proposal we put together for your brief. Typically we offer 3 different solutions, each driven by a slightly different approach. A 3D animation will likely cost more than a 2D motion graphics video, so this will impact the budget for your project. Once we know which animation service type you’d like to use, we work through a series of tasks that will set the final style design for the project. We start with moodboards to show you competitors, examples we think work well and different approaches. Once we know your likes and dislikes, we use some of the language from the script combined with your brand guidelines to create a handful of ‘style frames’. These are a representation of what the final animation will look like. At each stage we discuss the pro’s and con’s of different creative approaches and help to uncover what will resonate with your audience.

The large majority of our tech projects are for internal use only, or contain sensitive information that is bound under NDAs. We have an extensive online portfolio of case studies which talk about a project's aims, solution and outcome for the client alongside detailed imagery and behind-the-scenes breakdowns. We can also share relevant examples that might share a similar problem, solution or design approach to your project, but that are from different industries.

Regardless of the subject matter or the sector, all complex information needs to be explained in a simple way. To do this, you break down the complexity into clear, bite-sized chunks. These simple chunks of information can be layered with nuance and technical detail. It’s key to get the balance of this correct so that you’re informing and educating without overwhelming. To increase the engagement of your audience, you need to explain to them the ‘why’. Talk about the solution in real terms for them, talk about the value that your solution provides. Think about the contrast between sections and information. You might start with a technical concept at a macro level, talking about the wider infrastructure, before diving into the micro level to talk about technical details and nuance. This momentum and rhythm helps the user to absorb the information, giving them natural breaks to ‘catch their breath’. With any video, you need to consider making it understandable, making it memorable, and having plenty of contrast.

The fundamental of any branded material is to strengthen the brand rather than diluting it. We have a long background working with tech companies, some with highly sophisticated brand guidelines, others without. We start by reviewing your guidelines, looking for elements that we can use within the animations to help tell the story of the brand. We’re skilled at interpreting and working with guidelines that are restrictive or may just not be specific about animation principles for the brand. Before moving into production, we’ll create a project specific style guide (which we call style frames) that show exactly how your brand will work within the animation. One of the main advantages of animation is that your video can use your brand colours, your fonts, your shapes and graphic elements in combination to tell a story unique to your brand. Your video will feel like an extension of your brand.

There isn’t a single ‘right’ answer to this question. It depends on your audience and where they’ll watch your tech explainer video. A potential customer watching on social media will need a different approach versus a developer learning about your features from your website. For marketing and brand awareness, shorter is better. Social media videos should be quick, 30-45 seconds, and the first 5 seconds are crucial to hooking the attention of your audience. Website explainer videos can stretch to 90 seconds, as a viewer will be most invested in what you have to say, and likely be seeking this information from you. If your content is for a more technical audience, you’ll naturally have a bit longer as opposed to a customer or prospect. Technical demos showing how your API works or complex workflows can run longer. But keep in mind that in training and learning contexts, people prefer shorter, focused videos. Instead of creating a single 5 minute video, can you make a series of 5x 1 minute videos? Your content will be more manageable, easier to update and allows a viewer to learn at their own pace, as and when they need.

Our ISO 9001 certified process is designed to get you from start to finish as smoothly as possible. We’re always focused on moving the project forward with small, systematic steps. At each creative stage, we present our work, get initial feedback and give time for wider feedback from other stakeholders. It’s crucial that you have enough time to properly review the materials and collect feedback before we move to the next step. Our experience in the tech sector shows that one round of revisions per stage is plenty for our clients as this adds up to typically 6 rounds of revisions over the course of the project. If you need a second round of revisions, it’s normally not an issue (and something we don’t charge for) as they’re typically small adjustments to things like colours or text, rather than bigger changes that have come from the first round of feedback. Once you’re happy, and the stage is approved, we move on to the next one. If you need to address something that has been previously approved, these changes are handled case-by-case. For example, updating a single line of the script after the storyboard is complete might have a minimal impact on the design. But updating an entire paragraph could mean a significant rework. We’ll always discuss this with you to see if there’s solutions to incorporate feedback with as little impact to timelines and budgets as possible. It’s rare for there to be large changes during production - our thorough briefing stage and our rock solid process are designed to get things right the first time round.

We need to know your objectives and your target audience - ideally we’d also have some understanding of what success looks like for your project. Sometimes these are performance based and have KPIs, sometimes they’re more abstract and higher level like brand awareness. We’d like as much information and supporting material as possible. There may be some brilliant nugget of information or idea hidden away in a document. Competitor examples and project references are always extremely useful and often get us up to speed quicker. We have a thorough briefing workshop that we have over a 30 minute call to understand all the important information we need to create a briefing document for our team. This will cover information on your audience, the length of video you’d like, the marketing or communication channels the information will be shared on, relevant deadlines, technical delivery requirements and much, much more.

We’re often asked to deliver animations for a global audience. One of the advantages of animation is the ability you have to deliver different videos for different markets. We can create projects with scalability in mind; working in a modular way. Elements like text, voiceover and even colours can be built to make versioning and variations easy and cost effective. We can design with a global audience in mind; creating storyboards that are neutral to specific regions, or we can create highly tailored visuals that are swapped depending on the intended audience. We can create animations with subtitles, voiceover dubbing or fully translated text. We handle everything from simple subtitle changes through to full visual and audio adaptations. Then, our delivery process includes organising and packaging files for distribution across different regions, languages and platforms.

For the tech sector, measuring success will vary depending on your objectives. There are easy measurements to track like viewing rates, completion rates, completion ratios and completion percentages. For a training video, you might measure success based on the viewers understanding and retention of the content. You might use feedback surveys to understand if the animation has helped users with technical aspects to your platform, or understand how the animation has impacted their perception of your brand. In an on-boarding context, you could measure whether viewers of the animated videos need less support or make less errors in processes. Some metrics are more abstract and will take longer to see a true representation of their ROI. Each project will have its own definition of success, but during our briefing process, we’ll work with you to identify relevant metrics and considerations for tracking and evaluating success. This means we can make animated videos that not only look brilliant, but achieve your objectives.

We are a specialist animation studio that only creates camera-free videos. We’re passionate about 2D animation, 3D animation and motion graphics. We don’t create anything using live-action video. Because of this, we’re experts in what we do. We work cross-sector, meaning we can bring insights and learnings from other business industries and look to apply it for you. 

We have an ISO 9001 certification for project and quality management. We have built a highly efficient and effective workflow that enables us to deliver brilliant work, on budget and on time. We’re often praised by our clients for brilliant service, great project management and excellent communication. This all stems from our rigorous process.