Cartoons are used internally and externally by companies. The films are used to visualize everything from company strategies, product development, user journeys, employee learning – and of course to external branding, recruitment and advertising. But why do cartoons have such a positive effect on us? Why do we think they are fun and interesting to watch?
Cartoons create comprehension and retention
In visual communication, one often speaks of “appeal”, “understanding” (comprehension) and “retention”. Randy Krum has written a really good book about on that topic.
Kort fortalt er god kommunikation appellerende og overskueligt at se på. For vi mennesker kan lide at se på ting, som umiddelbart og intuitivt giver mening for os og skaber overblik. Når kommunikationen er sammensat på den måde, skaber den forståelse. Og når vi forstår – og kan lide det – vi ser, så kan vi huske det. Og det er netop det, som en god tegnefilm kan.
In short, good communication is appealing and simple to look at. It creates a good overview. And people like to look at things that immediately and intuitively make sense to us and create an overview. When communication is composed in this way, it creates understanding. And when we understand – and like what we see, we remember it. And that’s just what a good cartoon can do for you and your company.
Related: Speed drawing videos make people remember
Exaggeration promotes understanding
When it comes to visual communication and animation films, one of the first things you learn is how the “good silhouette” plays an important part in your communication. Simply put – it’s all about how people or things appear from the right angle – cropped in the right way. Because this provides the best meaning for your history and your target group’s understanding.
It’s about your recipient being able to read your message quickly. And here the pose, posture (and form) are some of the most important things to keep in mind. Think of how you can always tell a Coca Cola bottle from it’s shape (silhouette).
In animation we call it “line of action“. This means that your recipient must be able to understand the story, even if your protagonist is only seen as a silhouette. In this way one constantly exaggerates the poses and movements a little so that the story becomes easier to understand. The same is for example the case with ballet, where the practitioners exaggerate their poses to create a clear understanding of the story they dance.
What is beauty?
Research has shown that the easier we humans can decode content, the better we like to look at it. This means that the faster the brain can process and analyze content and categorize and create understanding from it, the more beautiful we think the content is. That’s why animation films works really well to get your story across to your audience.
Live drawing
That is why so many companies are using cartoons, animated videos, drawings, comic books or live drawing. The latter is used for events and conferences where strategic content is developed, adapted or communicated. Live drawing is also good for creating “buy-in” and acceptance of your strategy, because participants who have seen an illustrator visualize the strategy live feel that they themselves have helped to create the strategy visualization and have participated to the content.
Visual communication that works well
Did you know e.g. that human brain treats visual information 60,000 faster than reading text? This is because the brain treats each letter in a text as an image to be analyzed. For this reason videos, cartoons, animation and drawings are much more effective for communication than text.
Related: Improve your deep reading ability