The Challenge

Arts Council England is a government-funded body dedicated to promoting the performing, visual and literary arts in England. Since 1994, Arts Council England has been responsible for distributing lottery funding. This investment has helped to transform the building stock of arts organisations and to create much additional high-quality arts activity.

I was asked to design and animate a short animated gif to be used to support The Arts Council's annual environmental report.

The Solution

I designed and animated this short gif to be used to support The Arts Council's annual environmental report as a way of visualizing information using a combination of imagery, illustrations, charts, graphs, text and other elements that are animated. GIFs or videos have become some of the most shared content on social media.  The animation and animated elements help make the information set by the Arts Council more engaging and easy to understand even if the audience has no prior idea or experience with the report.

The Animation Storyboard

Firsty I created this storyboard (below) as a graphic organizer to plan the narrative. Storyboards are a set of sequential drawings to tell a story. This storyboard was very powerful in visually presenting information to my manager. The linear direction of the cells was perfect for telling the stories, explaining the process, and showing the passage of time. It also allowed my team and to see potential problems that would not go unnoticed, ultimately saving time and money.

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Results

This animation and animated elements help make the information that was set by the Arts Council more engaging and easy to understand even if the audience has no prior idea or experience with the report. 

The Background Report

The animation above was based on this report designed by my colleague at Epigram Communications Louise Roper. It was great to make her stylish document graphics come to life.