The 12 Animation Techniques in Web Design: Adding Life to Your Site

Animation is an extremely powerful tool. It can make us laugh, make us cry, and even be used to enhance the web design of your website. Clever, amazing and fun animations can add engagement and interactivity to any website.

But animation isn’t exactly a simple thing. Talented animators use many different animation techniques to bring images to life. It’s vital that you know which one is best for what kind of purpose so that you truly enrich your website.

The 12 Animation Techniques and How They Can Make Your Site More Interesting

Since the art of animation began, essential techniques have been developed to create interesting and unique forms of motion. These core principles of animation are used worldwide by influential companies like Disney.

Animation can be used in many ways to improve your Auckland website’s web design, including:

Animated Logos. Does your business have a unique logo that you put much thought into? You can make your logo even more stupendous by making it move.
Moving Text. Your site most likely has heaps of informative text on it, whether it be in the form of bold captions, helpful text passages or large titles. Your text can be more interesting if it moves into place, and the movement will help draw attention to important information.
Hover Text. This refers to when a user puts their cursor over a specific part of your site, and the cursor either changes into something or activates an animation.

The twelve most popular animation techniques used in web development are:

Squash and Stretch. This technique is used to make objects appear to deform when they move. It’s far more interesting than seeing an unchanging object move across the screen and can create a sense of weight and movement.
Follow Through and Overlapping Action.This is used to create a sense of realism. When you move suddenly and then stop, parts of your body (like your clothes, your hair and so on). This is a realistic technique that shows how objects move after they’ve been set into action.
Anticipation. This creates a sense of suspense by showing how an object is about to move before it actually moves. For instance, a character who is about to jump might bend their knees or take a deep breath.
Exaggeration.This style is very popular in comedic animations, as it exaggerates the movements of an object to make it more humorous or visually appealing. It’s also extremely eye-catching and can get people to look where you want them to look.
Timing. This technique is used to control the speed of an animation. It can create a sense of rhythm, or it can emphasise certain parts of an animation. Fast animations can add life to your site, whereas slower ones can give your website’s web design a mellow vibe.
Slow in and Slow Out. This particular style adds weight and realism by making objects start and stop their movements slowly. This is in contrast to ‘linear’ animation, where objects start and stop their actions abruptly.
Arcs. This technique is used to make objects move in a curved path rather than directly from one point to another. Curved paths feel more fluid and may be more interesting than direct paths.
Secondary Motion. This is primarily used to add detail and realism to any animation. Secondary motion refers to animating the secondary elements of an object rather than just focusing on the main parts. For instance, if a character is walking, their hair, clothes, and accessories could also move independently.
Bezier Curves.This interesting style can create smooth and fluid animations. Bezier curves are mathematical equations that can define the shape of an object’s movement.
Key frames.This technique is used to define the important points in an animation, such as where a character starts and where they end up at certain points in the entire animation.
Tweening.This refers to when an animator uses a program to generate images between key frames. This can save heaps of time and effort, as animation is an extremely time-consuming task that requires heaps of patience, but it can also lead to less realistic animations.
CSS Animation. This interesting technique is used to create animations using CSS. CSS is the language used to style website pages, and it can also be used to animate elements on a page. It could be used to make your website’s web design far more interesting.

How to Know Which Animation Style Is Best for Your Site

The world of animation is so captivating because there are so many possibilities. With a blank canvas, skilled animators, smart web designers and enough time and money, you can create nearly anything you want for your site.

But with these twelve animation techniques and the many techniques not mentioned here, it can be very difficult to know which one you should use for your site. You can look at other websites to get an idea of what you could do.

When deciding, try to think about:

The Purpose of the Animation.What are you trying to achieve by incorporating this animation into your site? Are you trying to change the mood? Draw attention? Boost engagement? Try to pick a technique that fits your purpose.
The Target Audience.Make sure you define your audience so you can choose appropriate web design elements for your Auckland website. For example, if you run a bright and happy website for a dog walking service, you could have adorable animations of happy walking dogs that utilise the ‘exaggeration’ technique by giving the dogs big, bounding movements.
The Style of Your Site.What is the overall look and feel of the website? The animation should complement the overall style. For instance, if your site has a sophisticated and classy ambience, then you could use smooth animations and calm movements.

What You Can Do to Make Your Site More Vibrant, Eye-Catching and Interesting

If you want to make your website really stand out, then we at Kiwi Website Design are here to help. We have plenty of experience working on amazing websites for astounding Auckland businesses, and we’re here to help you as well.

If you’re interested in our services, then you can reach our team through our website’s contact page. We look forward to hearing from you!

Make your beautiful site truly unique with Kiwi Website Design.