The Best-Kept Secret in Video Marketing: Motion Graphic Design

At Amplomedia, we love what we do. Our passion for helping organizations communicate their key messages in a new and highly engaging way is what gets us out of bed in the morning! The only problem that remains is that at the end of the day, we’re pretty sure that our parents still have no idea what it is that we do. So, mom and dad, this post is for you.

As we talked about in our last two blog posts, this is the age of the fancy internet machine and social media marketing- and in it there’s no better communication tool than video. What we do, (motion graphic design), is both a form of video production as well as a high-impact addition to live video. Although it’s been around for decades, motion graphic design is still a relatively new concept when it comes to marketing for the average small business or not-for-profit organization. In fact, many of our clients aren’t even entirely sure what it is…that is, until they’ve become clients! Often, the best way for us to explain our product is to call it ‘animated’ video for marketing and communications. Technically, this isn’t accurate. The key difference between Animation and Motion Graphics is that animation actually ANIMATES characters, giving them human-like movements and expressions. (Check out the 1:45 mark of this video for an example).

Motion graphic design doesn’t use ‘animation’ in this way, but instead employs techniques like camera angle changes to create motion. This distinction makes motion graphic videos much simpler and more flexible to produce, make changes to, and build upon than animated videos.

Motion graphic design, in the context of what we do, is all about having illustrated objects, characters and backgrounds move, interact and transform in a way that tells a story or illustrates a concept or process. This form of video is ideal for any organization that has a story to tell, a point to get across, or a product or service to explain. It enables you to SHOW your audience what you’re talking about, rather than just telling them about it. Motion graphics can demonstrate complex relationships, visualize data or information and convey narratives in a way that live video just can’t do within the average marketing budget of a small-to-medium sized organization.

It took 400 words to do it – but hopefully that made it easier to understand why we think motion graphics are so cool! (Now we just need to send this to our parents so that they know what to tell their friends when they ask what we do.)