Let’s talk about Salt – 2D Explainer Animation

EUsalt 2D Explainer Animation

Background

EUsalt is the association of crystallised salt producers located in Europe. Their vision is to educate and communicate the values and benefits of salt as an essential building block for the chemical industry and the energy sector and as a vital mineral for health, safety and nutrition.

The Task

And so, EUsalt came to Painting Pixels in order to explore the power of 2d explainer animations to allow them the clearest portrayal of how salt plays an essential role in every one of our lives. The animation was to be a concise, 3-4 minute video explaining the variety of uses of salt. 

They chose to utilise the medium of 2D explainer animations as they can convey a message in a visually stunning manner, resonating with the audience and leaving a lasting impression, while being entertaining and informative. 

Process

The animation’s process started as all 2d explainer animations do, with the idea of what needs to be portrayed and how we can convert this into a script that includes all of the necessary information, without being too cumbersome and which works well in a visual storytelling format.

After deciding on a 7 scene script, which covers the large variety of uses for salt in a myriad of different industries, we had to lay out the basic visual story and scenes to match up with this complete script.

This is where a doodle board can be of enormous help, as it allows for the basic layout and understanding of what visuals and events need to take place in each corresponding scene. With certain projects, this can be enhanced and expanded into a storyboard, with a more professionally sketched out design, however, our client was happy with the direction, and so the doodle board was handed over to our talented team of artists for the full production to begin.

It is in the planning stages of the animation that the style and tone are important to get consistent, as well as matching up with the client’s branding elements, such as colour and graphical style.

The Adobe suite is a crucial software package for our workflow, especially Adobe After Effects, which was used for all of the animations in this project, as well as Adobe Illustrator, which was used to create some of the bespoke graphics needed for this 2d explainer animation. Adobe Premiere Pro was also needed in some instances, especially when editing the voice-over track for use in the explainer animation.

Result

After careful revisions and perfecting of every scene, the finished 2d explainer animation was ready to go live! Our client loved the direction and style that we went with it, and we had a lot of fun making sure it was perfect to go out to the public.

We also learnt a lot about salt and its uses in the making of the explainer animation, as it goes in-depth on some of the aspects you may not have considered salt being used for.

Overall, we loved working on this animation project and both EUsalt and we were very happy with the finished product.

Furthermore, we created an additional 4 versions translated to French, German, Italian, and Spanish respectfully, matched up with translated text as well as a fully re-voiced animation by professional voice-over artists in their individual language, in order to ensure many other countries can learn about the many benefits of salt! To check out these versions, take a look at our article on this here.

To have a look at more of our 2D explainer animations, check out our Video Gallery, and for more information on these types of productions, check out our 2D animation service!