THE

5 MAIN STYLES OF

1 TRADITIONAL Traditional animation refers to the animation style of the first

big motion pictures, starting with Walt Disney Animation
Studios in 1937. The style was mostly a hand-drawn,
hand-painted, frame-by-frame process that was creatively
labor-intensive. While traditional animation is no longer

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mainstream, practices like storyboarding, character design,
and frame-by-frame sketching are still heavily used.

2D vector-based animation is arguably the most common

style of animation, and represents graphics that are created
in 2-dimensional graphics programs such as Adobe 2D VECTOR-BASED
Illustrator or Procreate. 2D animation can be used to portray
feelings, emotions, or complex information in a simplified
way that a normal audience couldn’t usually digest. It’s also

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the most widely used for branding and marketing due to the
scalability and ease of distribution.

3D animations are graphics that were modeled in a

3D 3-dimensional environment and then animated. Modeling 3D
scenes, objects, and characters to create visuals is
“Computer-Generated Imagery,” or “CGI.” CGI animation is
technically labor-intensive, the amount of data generated
from a 3D environment requires high-powered technology.

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There are also many different types of 3D media like
marketing videos, character animations, or special effects.

Motion graphics are a subgenre of animation, or “supplemental

animated graphics.” They provide more information to the core MOTION GRAPHICS
animation. The main motion graphics types are 1. Animated
typography, 2. Infographics, 3. Lower thirds, 4. Title cards, 5.
Call to Action, 6. Transitions. While individually, these different
assets do not make up a full video or animation, they can be

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applied to a narrative to enhance the experience and provide
more information for the audience.

Stop Motion is similar to traditional animation in the way that

STOP MOTION it’s also a frame-by-frame process. While traditional animation
is 2D and hand-drawn, stop motion is photography turned into
3D animation. Stop motion feature films are unique and also
require intense pre-production; since one scene can take up to
thousands of carefully staged photographs, the room for error
is tiny. It’s also a great style to portray certain moods or
emotions, like in Tim Burton’s “The Nightmare Before
Christmas,” and the unsettling, spooky animation.

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