We’ve recently finished 30 educational animations for Oxford University Press that were designed to excite kids about the science topics that they will be studying in years 7, 8 and 9. It was certainly one of the more educational projects we’ve worked on recently, and I don’t just mean for the audience!

We covered subjects as diverse as digestion, atomic structure and electromagnetic induction, and learned a whole lot of stuff that had clearly left our brains at some point during those hazy University days. Here are a couple of examples from the series:

The films were designed for OUP’s Activate brand, which is an educational resource for Key Stage 3.

Activate as a brand gave us a strong and fun colour scheme, which allowed us to make the films bright and visually dynamic throughout.

The first challenge was finding a balance between keeping the films moving at a vibrant and bouncy pace to keep the audience’s attention at a maximum, while making sure that students of all abilities have time to digest the information before we move on.

In order to achieve this, we inserted segments of dynamic typography to illustrate key points. This text appears, flows and animates as the narrator explains the science. This double whammy of seeing and hearing words at the same time is highly effective in helping students remember important information.

We used motion graphics to bring the rest of the films to life; animating everything from molecules to electrons, and from crime scenes to racing tracks, in a simple graphical style that retains the essential information of each scene or diagram but discards any unnecessary detail that can confuse when moving at speed.

In order to deliver these 30 films in 30 weeks, our biggest challenges were keeping the films consistent with one another, and of consistently high quality. These were some of the comments that we received from Oxford University Press:

We’ve ended up with a fantastic set of really engaging animations. It’s been an enjoyable project to work on.

We’re bowled over with the quality of the work that you’ve produced for this project!

I’m really happy with how the series is looking — we set out to create clear, distinctive and engaging presentations and I reckon we’ve nailed it! Thanks!

More details about the project can be found here – OXED Activate KS3 Science Series