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What Motion Graphics Are & Why You Should Use Them in Your E-Learning Courses

AllisonLaMotte's avatar
AllisonLaMotte
Staff
7 years ago

You may not have heard the term motion graphics before, but you’ve almost certainly seen examples of them in your daily life. Let’s take a closer look at what exactly we mean when we say motion graphics and, most important, how they relate to e-learning.

What Are Motion Graphics?

Motion graphics are animations that create an illusion of motion using things like images, words, narration, sound effects, and music. But motion graphics are more than just digital works of art. Most of the time, their primary goal is to explain something or tell a story.

Here are some examples of motion graphics to give you a better idea of what we’re talking about:

Want to stay up to date on what’s new and cool in motion graphics? Bookmark this site: Motionographer.com.

Why Use Motion Graphics in Your E-Learning Courses?

Because vision is the most developed of our five senses, motion graphics are a highly effective communication tool. So it’s no surprise that they’re used in movies and TV shows—and also to create marketing videos and product advertisements, like this one by Slack or this one by Apple.

Why not harness that power to help people learn? By adding motion graphics to your e-learning courses, you can more effectively capture and keep your learners’ attention. Not to mention that this type of animation provides more than just a wow factor—it actually helps learners better understand the concepts by showing them instead of just telling them.

More Resources

If you have a motion designer at your fingertips, then you’re one of the lucky ones! If not, don’t worry. You don’t have to be a motion designer to apply some of the motion design principles when creating your e-learning courses to attract and engage your learners. Just check out these resources: 

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Published 7 years ago
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  • FaithEdwards-2f's avatar
    FaithEdwards-2f
    Community Member
    7 years ago
    Love all the graphics and motion graphics articles and tips that keep going up at the moment. We need more of this! :)
  • Jerson-Campos's avatar
    Jerson-Campos
    Community Member
    7 years ago
    I've used motion graphics in my courses whenever I feel it would do better to explain the concept than static images. This could be from simple animated GIF animations or full motion graphic videos. In many cases, static imagery cannot fully explain what animation can and have the same impact.
  • DanSweigert's avatar
    DanSweigert
    Community Member
    7 years ago
    Thanks again for sharing this Allison, as I mentioned in another one of your articles, it would be great to see some Articulate webinars on graphic design tricks, tips, tools. I hope this is ok to post here, but I created this motion graphic for my portfolio. It's really simple, but I'd like to know what people think. It's of a parrot flying over a rainforest and includes some original music I created a while back on the kalimba. http://cropcirclecollective.com/dan_sweigert_portfolio/story_html5.html
    • AllisonLaMotte's avatar
      AllisonLaMotte
      Staff
      7 years ago
      Thanks for that feedback, Daniel! I'll be sure to share it with the Articulate Live team :)

      Thanks for sharing your motion graphic portfolio! It's always interesting to see what other people do.
  • ChrisRoetzer-0d's avatar
    ChrisRoetzer-0d
    Community Member
    6 years ago
    Thanks for bringing attention to your post via LinkedIn today, I missed this one last year. This technique is definitely on trend, though I've found it really adds to development time that seems lately to be in short supply. Sometime I use it's simplified "cousin" with motion path animation of elements. But it's a great reminder that using it, of course never gratuitously, can bring some content to life.

    I'm reminded of a few years ago when learning about animation at UF, and the development of US motion picture and film industry. Even childhood "flip books" are the same idea - "motion picture" -- put them together and move them quickly and you have 'short movie' which brings those still images to life.

    Last thing to add/share on this is I attended a great webinar this week hosted by eLearning Brothers (love their stuff and have no affiliation with them in full disclosure) on how easy it is to use Vyond to create motion animated videos as standalone artifacts or elements you can easily incorporate into Storyline, Camtasia, etc. in much less time that with, say, After Effects if you even have that app. It's come so far from the early GoAnimate days; I'm thinking how I can use one in my next project!