The Power of Pictures: How Early Storytelling Shapes Us
Often the very first books we encounter are picture books, our first introduction to the power of rich visual language. While our books change, the power of this language doesn’t. We’ve reflected on visual language, from picture books to explainer videos and whiteboard animation.
Professor Ray Laurence: Animation, History and University Research
Professor Ray Laurence talks about the ways translating his research into explainer videos with Cognitive has dramatically increased the reach of his work and triggered debate among people across the world.
Ideas, Animation and the Creative Process
The RSA has won a Webby Award for their RSA Shorts series, which has been running since 2012. We asked Animator and co-founder of Superdoodle Katy Ross about the experience of creating RSA Shorts.
260 Years of History in 11 Metres
Condensing more than 260 years of history into one mural is no mean feat. In this post Cognitive founder and mural artist Andrew Park talks about the experience of creating it and the events he and RSA Historian Anton Howes have held.
Professor Ray Laurence: Animation, History and University Research
Professor Ray Laurence talks about the ways translating his research into explainer videos with Cognitive has dramatically increased the reach of his work and triggered debate among people across the world.
Visualising and explaining Prof. Stephen Hawking's Supertranslations theory
Black Holes might not seem to be visually engaging at the outset. Ultimately there’s not a lot to work with when you think of a hole that swallows light so nothing can be seen. But for Cognitive this is exactly the sort of challenge we love. Hear from Andrew Park about how he and the team visually translated Prof Hawking’s final Black Hole theory of Supertranslations.
Talk to the Hand - Andrew Park on RSA Animates
Originally published by the RSA in 2015, Andrew Park muses on his creation of the RSAnimates style and the invention of whiteboard animation. ‘When one returns to something there is a tendency to look back over what went before - to assess where you have come from in order to move forward.’
Creating appealing characters – Simplify and exaggerate!
A lot of the time, we use characters to help aid with our storytelling which is why, as an Illustrator, I often study figures in real life.
When pictures really are worth a thousand words
At Cognitive we tell stories. If you want to remember a message then storytelling is the best vehicle to do this. Our brains are far more engaged by stories than lists of facts and figures.
Character Development in Gaming
Powerful storytelling in games is a key feature for creating a world that players can immerse themselves in. Broaching a variety of difficult subject matters, interactive software has increased it’s suitability and accessibility to a wider audience and it’s fair to say the gaming world has expanded its horizons exponentially, giving it’s creative fantasy world a fundamental core of all-too-real issues.
Storytelling - It starts with a great script
At Cognitive we are ultimately a company of visual thinkers. We use pictures and images to supercharge stories for our clients, but that is literally only half of the story, it's not the whole picture!
Animation - it's character building
Characters are what drive the emotional reactions of the viewer to a story. The viewer invests their emotions into the characters. Find out how and why we use characters in our work...
