How to Add Life to Digital Displays with Nuanced Animation

This practice of nuanced animation has long been in use in traditional animated works.

Artists would study animals, dancers, and even machinery to better translate the movement to 2D animated sequences. Learning to use pace, ease, and delay to create more realistic, familiar gestures, even lending a sense of physical weight or emotion, is the hallmark of nuanced animation.

However, even if your message doesn’t contain dancing hippos, or is more suited to the boardroom than the ballroom, these same techniques can be applied to liven up your presentation.

Even messages usually considered more static and sterile, like PowerPoint presentations, can be made more engaging and lively with the addition of nuanced animation using nothing more than the tools that are already provided within the application.

There is, however, a reason it is called “nuanced” – to prevent the temptation to go overboard with the flashy transitions and pre-fab animations included with some presentation software.

Including subtle cues and references via animation is a great way to make static messaging more engaging, reach larger audiences more effectively and more fully utilize an existing digital communications platform.

Author Katie Bair will be presenting a general conference seminar at EduComm Expo 2015 entitled, “Adding Life to Digital Displays with Nuanced Animation,” on Wednesday, Sept. 30th, from 3:00-4:00pm at the Georgia World Congress Center. For more information about EduComm Expo, or to register for this or any other educational seminar or workshop and learn more about digital communications technologies and strategies, click here.

Katie Bair, IT Communications Officer at the University of California Merced, is responsible for creation and implementation of the department’s external communications and marketing, social media and Web presence. With an extensive background in digital art and animation, Bair has created interactive animated displays and presentations for companies such as Honda, Toyota, and Amgen Pharmaceutical. She also spent the last five years as a director for a large convention in Northern California, where she developed marketing and event programming and organized special charities.