ANIMATED Websites

Animation in Website Design

Analysis & Showcase

 

 

Animating elements in website design perform both a functional and an aesthetic purpose. Since human beings are illusionist creatures, anything that appears to be alluring to the eyes entices them. Animation is an effective means to bring about the visual magic of virtual motion that engages people. Further more, what makes animation fashionable is the subject area of realism. In computer animation, the scene is rendered to recall a real thing that is natural and believable. Animated website trend is one of the most interesting and popular design style — something that we are starting to see more of every day. This web design technique makes a website more attractive and consequently draws more users in. Being an effective tool for visual communication, website Animation style provides a whole new instrument for expression and creativity. It is trendy, fun and user friendly.




The Evolution of Animation

Animation is all about movement. The key point is to give a soul to design elements. One of the words that is nearly analogous to animation is Disney. The 12 principles of animation were first introduced in the early 1980s by two of the companies’ top animators, Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas. Using animation in web design started a while ago and since then — like other website trends — has been developed a lot. The smartphone revolution disrupted almost all industries. As a result, Animation web technique was further advanced to meet the new requirements. This was mainly achieved by the help of computer-generated images. Animation technique, however, is regarded as one of the most complicated parts of the graphic design for websites. The reason is that it is generally time-intensive and demands high-speed computers and sophisticated software.




usability & functionality features of Animation Websites

Employing animated elements is a great way to improve both the usability and functionality of a website. Animated items are used to better conversions and visual feedback, show where to click, indicate errors in forms; and much more. The following is a description of some of these features:


  • Highlight Actions:
    This is achieved by using micro-interactions — small events where the user and design interact. Their main purpose is to enrich the user's experience with the design. This class of animation accomplishes two purposes. Firstly, it gives viewers a visual feedback when they interact with an element. Secondly, it provides users with information on how to use it. Here are practical situations where you can apply them:

    *  To let users know a particular action was successful.

    *  To highlight when users turn a feature on or off.

    *  To emphasize specific pieces of information.


  • Display Hidden Information:
    Hover animations are an efficient way to bump up the information provided in a limited available space.

  • Distract users During a page load:
    Although the internet is faster than it has ever been, loading time is still a major issue for most websites. It can make users so much impatient that they leave the site. Using animation is a hyper-efficient means to distract viewers while a page is loading. They can even have fun watching while waiting. Applying simple, flat shapes are the rule of thumb here.

  • Reveal Hidden Menus:
    Generally, menus should always be visible. However, in some instances, using hidden menus make sense as far as they are easy to access.



CONCLUSION: When to Use Animation?

Using animated design elements needs to fulfill a purpose. When applied thoughtfully, animation greatly improves users’ experience — which should be the primarily reason behind implementing it as your preferred website style. Yet in some instances, the goal of an animated element can just be a stylish one. There’s nothing wrong with wanting an aesthetic website, if the ambition is to create visual interest images that in turn leads to keeping users engaged with the site for a longer time. Nonetheless, it has to be smooth, seamless and done in moderation. Otherwise, too many animations can result in a visual overload, slow down the website; and most importantly can get in the way of the content. I repeat once again what Luke Clum stated some years ago, “No matter how you slice the pie, at the end of the day we all need to provide detailed content for our readers, not just pretty images. “

Finally, it is worth mentioning that ‘timing’ is one of the most important factors included in a well-implemented animation project. It provides physical and emotional meaning to an animation by giving viewers the right feeling and understanding. If an animated website has problems with the timing, the users could lose encouragement for further engagement and exploration of the site.


NOTE: Some of the animated websites can take longer time to load. Thanks for your patience.

 

 

 

Kaipoch

w264

 

 

This Is Yoke

w589

 

 

Babel

w291-a

 

 

Lobster

w654

 

 

Arche 68

w188

 

 

Glorm

w407-a

 

 

Hello Monday

w461

 

 

The Interview

w647

 

 

Dieco

w434

 

 

Forefathers Group

w81-a

 

 

The Wilderness Down Town

FLASH

 

 

Titouan Mathis

w685

 

 

Paul The Designer

w239

 

 

Colli Ripani

w742

 

 

Reanimani

w670

 

 

Tasteatlas

w671

 

 

Kurppa Hosk

w511

 

 

Mad Studio

w375

 

 

KOBU Aggency

w416

 

 

Take A Gander

w333

 

 

Sam Dallyn

w344-a

 

 

fff

w631

 

 

Vadim Tyurin Portfolio

w716

 

 

Junior Akademie

w456-a

 

 

Camberwell Festival

w825

 

 

Filip Pobello

w826

 

 

TBWA

w827

 

 

Ingenio

w488

 

 

23i

w687

 

 

SilkTricky

w267

 

 

Great Jones Goods

w103

 

 

Sagmeister Walsh

w640-a

 

 

Kurppa Hosk

w98

 

 

The Geek Designer

w282-a

 

 

Hello Monday

w799

 

 

Colli Ripani

w742

 

 

Carbon Studio

w626

 

 

Red Collar

w853

 

 

Save The Air

w418

 

 

Fornasetti

w727

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


   ::  Please Note

Each of our articles includes a showcase of the websites that are best representative of the related web design category. As we know, websites are live documents and might be changed over a period of time in different regards. They may change their layout designs, contents, etc., or simply cease to exist (error codes: 404, 403, 401).

We do our best to regularly update our materials regarding these eventual modifications. However, it might happen that we could not keep up with these changes in time. So in case you are the first to notice these inconsistencies, please inform us. We really appreciate your feedback. You can easily contact us via our 'Contact Form' at the bottom of this page.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 


   ::  Contribute!

We are a small group doing our best to improve the quality of this site by presenting the latest information in web design industry via publishing new quality articles. You can contribute to this process through sending us your materials. We will publish them under your name.


   ::  Share it!

In case you find some of these articles interesting and useful, please send the article's link page to a friend so they can benefit as well.

Furthermore, if you happen to have a site similar to ours, please feel free to link to these editorials from your website.