EEF: The Manufacturer’s Organisation

Play Video

EEF The Manufacturer's Organisation

Explainer Animation for the Benefits of an EEF Membership

Challenge

EEF are the voice of the UK Manufacturing and engineering industries. Providing advice, consultancy and training to enable businesses to thrive.

As a membership organisation EEF are keen to ensure that they continue to grow and engage their audience to enable them to provide the maximum value in their industry sectors. Our challenge was to create a communications strategy that explained their value proposition, facilitated new membership enquiries and helped to strengthen the ties of existing members.

Solution

In order to increase the impact of inbound and outbound marketing activities we created an animation to articulate the key benefits of membership, with a final scene call to action. The animation features a high tech manufacturing setting to represent dynamic modern UK engineering companies. The animation is designed to work with voiceover or mute enabling it to be repurposed across channels and to work well on mobile.

You might also enjoy...

Smartr365: SaaS Explainer Animation

SAAS animation explainer
Play Video

Smartr365

SaaS Animation Explainer: Streamline the Mortgage Process

Challenge

To develop a series of SaaS animation explainers for the Smartr365 software. Developing the brand guides to create a strong visual language for animation, presenting the software in a simple yet sophisticated way.

Solution

Using a combination of clear illustrated icons and typography we developed an approach to animate the key features and benefits of the software. Creating a different animation for both mortgage brokers and their clients (the customer) we were able to refine key messages to the appropriate audience.

Outcomes

Now being used as ongoing sales tools for the Smartr365 team and as a series of touch points for potential customers.

SAAS animation explainer

You might also enjoy...

South West College – Chris Gregg’s Story

Play Video

South West College - Chris Gregory's Story

Promo Film to Advertise Studying at South West College

Challenge

South West College wanted to create a promo film to advertise the benefits of studying with them.

We collaborated with the college to tell the inspiring story of Chris Gregg. Disillusioned and stuck in a career he disliked, Chris joined SWC to turn his life around to follow his passion for multimedia.

Solution

The animation utilises SWC’s vivid colour palette to create a rich and engaging piece of marketing. The sound design was important in assisting the flow of the story, starting minimal and melancholy and ramping up to a more upbeat finish. Speaking to Chris directly, we were able to weave details from his life into the piece to make it feel natural, grounded and relatable.

Impact

This animated true story is used to drive uptake in the enrolment of students at SWC, driving awareness across social and appealing to those who may be considering a change in career.

You might also enjoy...

Yellowsands Foundation & Compass of Life Foundation – Liam’s Journey

Play Video

Yellowsands Foundation & The Compass of Life Foundation

Liam's Journey

Challenge

The Like Minded worked with Yellowsands Foundation and The Compass of Life Foundation to try to create a campaign that would increase awareness of under priviliged children in Wales who need support throughout their education, whilst maintaining an entertaining journey for the audience.

Storytelling

This story follows the journey of Liam through his education. From a bright, young boy, to when he becomes a teenager – struggling to balance his social life with school.

Ultimately, he discovers the Compass of Life, which points him in the right direction and a hand lifts him out of the sand, which represents the support Yellowsands Foundation offers.

The Like Minded Liam's Journey Concept Art
The Like Minded Liam's Journey Portrait Concept Art

Concept Art

By sketching out their ideas, our illustrators created a few different styles of characters to determine the feel for our animation. There are also a few fully-rendered concept pieces which are included below to show our own journey from concept to finished piece.

However, as you can see through our images, there were plenty of different thought processes and ideas we went through that didn’t make it to the final version of Liam’s Journey.

Testimonial

"It’s always fun and challenging trying new techniques and ways of telling a story. Working on touching stories, especially for great causes like these; makes my job even more enjoyable."
Arty Hunt - Animator at The Like Minded

You might also enjoy...

The Ralph

Play Video

The Ralph

Animation to Support the Launch of a New Veterinary Hospital

ralph_the_cat_playing_with_ball

Challenge

The Ralph approached us to help them to create a range of animated assets that would drive awareness of their new veterinary hospital. The animation needed to explain the services of the hospital but also the purpose and values behind it. With a healthy sprinkling of personality.

Solution

We utilised a limited colour palette complimented by hand drawn characters and line work. This helped to create clear messaging and lots of character for The Ralph.

Testimonial

"Thank you for everything that you have done on this video for us. We really love it!"

You might also enjoy...

Institute for Social and Economic Research – Understanding Society

Play Video

Institute for Social and Economic Research - Longitudinal Study

Understanding Society: Household Panels and how DNA is Collected and Used

Challenge

To inform participants in the longitudinal studies how their blood samples and biomarkers are collected, what they are used fort and the security of the data held to retain confidence. Alongside this to ensure that participants understand the value of the research and the important of them staying in the study.

The main challenge was to explain technical information to a non-specialised audience in a way that is engaging and memorable.

Solution

We developed a series of 2D animated characters to help make sure that the technical messages always had a human contact. The characters themselves have idiosyncratic movements to mark them out as individuals and to increase the engagement with the videos.

The videos are primarily used to an existing audience of research participants for The Institute for Social and Economic Research so the language used and the style of animation emphasises a friendly and collaborative approach, without the need for a strong call to action.

Technical Animation

The second animation in the series was titled “What is DNA?” and aimed to explain to study participants why they provide blood samples and what it is used for.

The animation style is is scientific but avoids overly technical language and is deliberately slow paced to ensure the viewer is able to absorb the key messages.

What is DNA?

Play Video

You might also enjoy...

Marie Curie & RCGP

Marie Curie People Talking Daffodil
Play Video

RCGP & Marie Curie

Charity Animation to Support the Launch of Daffodil Standards

Moving Marie Curie daffodil image

Challenge

One of the most challenging aspects of the brief was the 3-week timeline from the initial brief.

Our brief was to create a charity animation to support the launch of the Daffodil Standards, a new framework for GP’s and Medical Practices to support patients with a terminal illness.

Created by Marie Curie and the Royal College of General Practitioners, the animation needed to explain the areas of support and the training offered.

The goal of the animation is to encourage the audience to find out more information and to download the toolkit.

Solution

The animation was designed to be informative but not a full in-depth explainer video with attention paid to the visual and sound design.

The sound design was enhanced with a voiceover provided by the Actor David Tennant, a friend and supporter of Marie Curie.

We created an engaging character animation to depict the role of The Daffodil Standards in a medical practise and the interaction with patients and families. The Daffodil as the emblem of Marie Curie featured throughout the animation as a backdrop and prop to the characters.

Testimonial

"The Like Minded delivered a great quality animation for us to a very tight deadline. They accommodated our amends and comments very good-heartedly, and they were quietly efficient with things like booking studio slot for the voice over. We certainly hope to use them again in future."

You might also enjoy...

eviivo: Software Explainer Animation

Eviivo Software
Play Video

eviivo

A Unique Brand Series of Software Explainer Animations

Challenge

eviivo’s comprehensive software suite offers a powerful platform to help hoteliers and guesthouse owners run their establishments. We were tasked with creating a series of engaging software explainer animations highlighting the key features. The client also required language versions for specific European countries where the platform is used.

Solution

Working with the team at eviivo we developed a blended approach where illustrated brand mascot ‘Wooly the sheep’ helped guide users through visuals from the actual platform. We developed a characterful 2d aesthetic that aligned with their existing brand palette.

Chaptered Content

Specific videos were created to focus on the different areas of Eviivo’s platform. Rather than each being about a specific section of the UI, the covered user journeys through a certain topic such as ‘Booking Managment’ or ‘Rates & Promos’. This provided each video with a more natural flow.

Engaging Characters

Walkthrough explainers have a tendency to become quite dry when viewing for long periods. To avoid this, we balanced the UI sections of the video series with a peppering of lighthearted characterful animation.

These sections also helped to personify customers and hoteliers, providing a human (or sheep’s) response to the slick UI portions of the explainer animations.

software explainer animations
software explainer animations
software explainer animations

UI Interaction

Each UI was rebuilt from scratch to match the eviivo platform. This allowed the client to suggest subtle tweaks to screens, in order to focus the users’ gaze or reduce screen clutter that was irrelevant to video’s purpose.

With full control over the cursor, camera and the UI elements themselves, we could provide the viewer with the precise journey experience that eviivo intended.

Dynamic UI Builds

Another benefit of rebuilding each UI screen (as opposed to using screen capture for example), was the ability to animate engaging transitions. This not only generates a more interest to otherwise fairly flat sections of video, but also helps create a clear bridging point where the screen changes to a screen that is more than one click away.

The eviivo suite is implemented in a host of other countries. For this reason, it was essential that the software explainer animations be easily translatable into a selection of other languages. This was a much more efficient process due to the fact that we had recreated the entire set of UI screens. We were able to change each UI without having to recreate, maintaining a level of consistency across all of the animations created.

Brands that we created to populate the suite, as well as whimsical customer names, all tailored to make them relatable to each country. Should the client have desired, this could have been taken further, customising characters, buildings and landscapes for each demographic.

You might also enjoy...

KalamTech: Human Heroes: Marie Curie

Play Video

KalamTech - Human Heroes: Marie Curie

Animated Learning Content for KalamTech's Educational App

Challenge

KalamTech have created an educational app focussed on real life “human heroes”. We were tasked with creating the animated learning content for the life story of Marie Curie. The content needed to be engaging, accessible for a primary school aged audience and in-keeping with the 3D environments within the app.

Design

As a studio we have significant experience of designing educational animations and animated learning content. We utilised this to understand how to design with a primary school aged audience in mind.

The central character of Marie Curie is created with a large head in order to increase the viewers focus on the eyes and mouth of the character, enhancing empathy and connection. This was also of importance due to the relatively limited range of character motion in the animations that enabled a focus on Marie Curie and the key elements of each scene in order to enhance memory recall within the learning section of the app.

Sound

The animation itself was narrated by the BAFTA award winning actor Miriam Margoyles best known by the audience for her role in Harry Potter. Margoyles narration provided a rich and characterful soundscape across the 15 minutes of animation.

Impact

Since launching on the app store the Marie Curie content has received a 4.7 out 5 rating. The animations themselves have proven to be highly engaging with the target audience, as part of multimedia learning and as a standalone film

Play Video
Play Video
Play Video

You might also enjoy...

Methodist Homes – Moment of Joy: Sally’s Story

Sally music from MHA Sally's Story
Play Video

Methodist Homes

Moment of Joy: Sally's Story

The Like Minded Sally's Story Moment of Joy MHA Dementia
Cel Animation Break Down MHA Sally's Story
Sally's Story MHA Character Concept Art
MHA Sally's Story Moment of Joy Concept Art

Challenge

We collaborated with the MHA – a charity providing care and support for older people across the UK. They approached us to create an animation as part of a campaign to raise awareness of music therapy in dementia care. The MHA wanted to generate charitable funds to allow a greater number of older people to benefit from their music therapy service.

Solution

Collaborating with the MHA team we developed a script and narrative story centred around an older lady in care, called Sally.

Sally has led a full, happy life and now lives with dementia. While she is able to communicate her needs, she often appears anxious and agitated. When she attends music therapy sessions, songs like Nat King Coles ‘Unforgettable’ help Sally access happy memories from younger married life.

We wanted to use emotive animated storytelling and traditional frame by frame animation techniques to give the piece a unique feel. We hope this acts as a catalyst to engage people through social media and provides more opportunity for people living with dementia to have access to music therapy and Moments Of Joy as part of the BBC Music Day.

Testimonial

"It was a great animation to work on, I had lots of fun with it and it was for a good cause which makes the effort put in to it, 10 times more rewarding at the end."
Andrea - Illustrator & Animator at The Like Minded

You might also enjoy...