MOS Creative loves the holidays! Here’s a bunch of videos we’ve made in the past with a dash of holiday magic. Enjoy these throwback vids!
Cutout Animation: Cartoon Puppetry!
While there are many different styles of animation, one of the most-utilized and quickest styles is Cutout Animation, also known as Flash animation because of the program that’s used to create it. It’s a great way to bring characters to life with a rather fast turnaround. It’s no wonder that many animated television series use it. If it’s good enough for TV, it’s good enough for your marketing campaign.
We’ve done many of these in the past. If you remember our articles about our projects with Foodem and Bumblejunk, you’ll know how good we are at it! Here’s another example of our work, with Mosaic Power! Meet Mo!
The way this animation technique works is all the graphics are pre-drawn. Faces, hands, mouths, eyes—every motion a character will make. The result of that is a Character Puppet, or a Character Rig. The puppet can be reused over and over again, to make it look like it’s constantly moving, even though it’s repeated drawings. Neat little trick! This also perpetuates a feeling of consistency and legitimacy. It’s beneficial if you have an idea in mind that involves characters, but you don’t have any available actors to portray them in a commercial. Cutout Animation is the vehicle that’ll bring your ideas to life!
As stated above, many cartoons on television employ this tactic. Some of the more famous examples are Archer, Family Guy, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Dan Vs, and Brickleberry. The characters run the gamut of motion, while in actuality, these are re-used graphics, over and over. It’s beautiful and fun to watch, just as it is fun to make. (Honestly, some of our favorite projects were cutout animation.)
Since this is such a popular style, it’s very likely that people will latch onto commercials done in this manner. That, mixed with the popularity of youtube, our SEO, and just a dash of creativity, a cutout commercial will be beneficial to ANY marketing campaign. Remember, animation is able to do whatever you want, and is 100% editable. Cutout animation is no different! So perfecting an animated video for you is just one of the many things we at MOS Creative are proud to do! We see a production from conception to completion, all in-house! Pretty versatile if you ask me! Give us a shout and see what we’re about!
Let’s make beauty together. We want to help you stand OUT! So let’s get to work!
Here’s 3 quick reasons why Cutout Animation might be the perfect fit for you and your business:
1. Puppets.
Prepared puppets are a great alternative to having an animator draw a new drawing every single frame, like traditional animation. It can get completed in days-to-weeks, rather than years!
2. Puppets take the place of live actors.
If you have an idea but no actors to help out, then it’s just a voiceover and a puppet or two away from being realized!
3. Re-utilization.
These puppets can be used over and over again. If you have multiple campaigns and want to keep your character appearing throughout, then it’s no problem. We can pop the puppet back in, and make it do some awesome moves for ya!
Our thing is that we love helping you stand out. That’s just what we do, and we’re happy to do it for you. Let’s chat and see how we can bring your ideas into this world!
-The MOS Creative team.
Motion Graphics: Melding Graphic Design with Animation!
Animation, it makes your marketing seem alive, vibrant and vivacious! There are many kinds and styles of animation ranging from stop-motion to cgi. But motion graphics convey a certain feeling. They’re as quick and informational as they are beautifully designed and animated.
Motion graphics are a great way to advertise yourself because of the simplistic, often minimalistic visuals. Here’s an example of our work that we’ve done:
Don’t forget to participate in the contest mentioned in the video! You’ve seen this style of animation everywhere; Motion Graphic is used frequently to this date. Most commercials, online tutorials, website ads, and more utilize this method. One of the best things about this style is it’s relatively quick to make, especially compared to a fully animated cartoon. With that being said, remember our animation post from before? With youtube being the 3rd most popular site on the web, it’s a good idea to get something on it to spread the word about your product/service/company! 200 million potential eyes on you? Sounds like a deal to me!
Remember, animation is able to do whatever you want, and is 100% editable. Motion graphics is no different! So perfecting an animated video for you is just one of the many things we at MOS Creative are proud to do for you. We’re graphic designers and animators. We see a production from conception to completion, all in-house! Pretty versatile if you ask me! Give us a shout and see what we’re about.
Let’s captivate your audience together. We want to help you stand OUT! (We’re awesome at it!)
Here’s 3 quick reasons why Motion Graphics might be perfect for you and your business:
1. Quicker turnaround than most methods of animation.
We can and want to do a Disney-esque animation for you! But you may not want to wait that long for a final product. We understand, you’ve got weeks, not years. Well, motion graphics doesn’t need to take so long to create! We can have a beautiful finished product to you, lickety-split!
2. It conveys your message in a simple, user-friendly manner.
One of the most useful aspects of Motion Graphics is the fact that it lays out everything in a visually-stimulating manner, while keeping it simple. It’s usually accompanied with a voiceover to help convey your message. Though just because most motion graphics are often minimalist, it doesn’t mean we can’t get crazy with it. Animation is limitless, and we LOVE challenges!
3. Infographics, the still version of Motion Graphics.
Infographics are a great way to explain yourself. They’re all the rage these days, and motion graphics are very similar! Essentially, motion graphics are the moving version of infographics! Both are visually enthralling, but Motion Graphics gives us a little bit of awesome added to the mix. Contact us for both!
Our jam is that we love helping you stand out. That’s just what we do, and we’re happy to do it for you. Get a hold of us and let’s see how we can set your motion graphics into… motion.
PS: Check out our blog! Also, sorry for saying “jam”. It was dorky, but needed to be done.
Animation: Putting Motion Into Your Marketing!
You thought logos, slogans, SEO and hashtagging were all that went into marketing? Well, there’s much more than that! Those are sort of static; we need something a bit more ALIVE! This is where we utilize a little technique called ANIMATION!
Be it a tv commercial, online ad, or a simple video on your site—animation can be implemented into any marketing strategy. With Youtube being a prime source of entertainment (AND the 3rd most popular site on the web), you’re going to want some presence there. I mean, only 100 million internet users check out online video a day. That’s 200 million potential eyes pointed right at your animation. With more than 3 billion hours of video views per month, you’ll want to get your foot in that door.
Why animation though? Well, animation, above all, can be made to look however you’d like. You can do whatever you want with it! If you can think it, it can be created. Another great thing about animation is, it’s 100% editable! Plus, there are many styles in which to captivate your audience with–motion graphics, hand drawn animation, stop-motion animation, cg animation, cutout animation… well, the list goes on and on. There’s so many styles, so many techniques that can be utilized to create a completely unique and original piece that helps YOU stand out.
We here at MOS Creative are quite the animators ourselves. We see a production from conception to completion, all in-house! We’re pretty dang versatile! Check out our blog posts about animations we’ve done for Bumblejunk and Foodem! Get a hold of us and see what kind of animation we can do for you!
Here’s 3 quick things to keep in mind while creating an animation:
1. Consider the style.
With many options out there, you’ll need a style not only intriguing, but also one that fits your brand. You wouldn’t want a cartoony character hopping around the screen while speaking about your Mixed Martial Arts training program. Keep in mind your audience, know what they’ll respond to.
2. Length of the piece.
Animation, while quick to watch, is not quick to make. The more content you want in it, the more time it takes to animate. Though one thing MOS Creative has perfected over the years is a quick turnaround on animated projects. We pride ourselves on that fact!
3. Make it fun!
Animation is a limitless medium, so don’t be afraid to get crazy!
While you’re here, please enjoy one of our animated projects, a quick little toon about Mosaic Power!:
Check out our tumblr at moscreative.tumblr.com!
Throwback Thursday: Bumblejunk!
We work on many projects here at MOS Creative. Do you have too much clutter? Need it removed? Well, we know just the guys who will help you out with that. This week, we want to highlight one of our favorites: Bumblejunk Junk Removal!
We’ve created many things for these guys. Here, we’ve got businesscards, yard signs, postcards, a vehicle wrap, and even an animation that ran on television!
We did all the work in-house, utilizing one of our designers, John as the voice. Tony then animated it all together. This was super fun.
The businesscards were a fun project as well. Here’s the front:
And here’s the back:
We love how well the light blue and the bright, vibrant yellow play off of each other.
While the Bumblejunk guys are out at a house, removing junk as they do, they place a nice sign in the lawn.
Bright, happy, and hard to miss!
The residential postcards were also a treat to make:
As we see in this postcard, there’s a Bumblejunk vehicle driving around. Here’s our vehicle wrap design!
We had a ton of fun creating this. Give Bumblejunk a call today!
-The MOS Creative Team
Check out our blog!
Behind the Scenes: Foodem.com
We here at MOS Creative have done many projects, and here’s one of our recent ones, an animation for Foodem.com!
Our animator, Tony, cranked away at this animation. Here are some sketches of the chef character:
None of these made the cut
As you can see, our winning chef was born here! Tony then took this design, and made a full body. Then, the phonemes, or mouth motions had to be made. Here is a sketch sheet of the “happy” phonemes used in the animation:
These were all scanned in and drawn over in Adobe Flash. The animation was then completed with this full motion puppet!
This is just one of the animations we’ve made. We here at MOS Creative are capable of many different styles of animation/film/video and any other motion graphics projects you’d ever want! Remember our slogan: “We help YOU Stand out!” and that we do.
-The MOS Creative Team
check our our other blog, at moscreative.tumblr.com!
Meet John! Baltimore’s #1 Graphic Designer
John A.
John’s lifelong love of art and design inspired him to pursue a career as a Graphic Designer and create the art that surrounds us every day! His creativity also propelled his desire to work for a creative agency and led him to MOS almost 4 months ago!
The 4 Things You Need to Know Before Getting a Mobile Web Site
If you haven’t jumped on the mobile bandwagon yet, don’t fret. It’s not too late for you to join the party.
But do be picky when you hop on board!! There are sooooo many companies out there offering mobile services, and they are NOT all created the same.
Some services will “mobilize” your existing site for you, which means they just put all your current content into a narrower screen. This is the quick way to go mobile, but not the smart way. Think about it, mobile surfers are looking for something specific. A lot of the text and information on your full site may not be relevant for people on the go. Why get your viewers lost and confused in pages of stuff they don’t need?
Continue reading
What it takes to be Steve Jobs
“Why join the navy when you can be a pirate?” Wiser words never uttered by a man more influential and responsible for single-handedly transforming the computing and mobile landscape.
Steve Jobs told us to be crazy. He told us he wanted to put a ding in the universe. He didn’t put a ding, but he sure left an Apple.
A single glance at the non-stop media coverage, and you’d think America’s greatest superhero finally befell to his kryptonite. #SteveJobs, #iSad and #ThankYouSteve rotate Twitter’s trending topics, and pictures of our generation’s Thomas Edison continue to flood Facebook’s news feeds.
But in no jest, he was a hero to millions, probably billions, of people he never met. He changed the way we think about and interact with the world. Every time you have to ask your kid a computer question, remember, he’s the reason.
