We were offered a great opportunity to create an animated logo for Smart-sign.dk, and we would like to share and discuss our process and work on this interesting project.
Smart Sign Company is Danish company from Denmark, and they specialize in foam cutout sign. They have been a pixellogo client for years and have been utilizing one of our logos for some time. Cut out Foam cutting is a simple yet very elegant solution in taking a 2d logo and making it 3D sign. The only thing the customer needs is a black and white vector version of their logo, and Smart-Sign will create smart beautiful sign solutions. When we were contacted by Smart-sign.dk to animated their logo, we jumped at the chance to show our capabilities. They Loved Pixellogo Logo Animations and wanted to see how we can interpret their logo to a 3D animation.
Coming up with a great idea for a logo Animation
Logo animation is not about making thing rotate to get attention from customers, in the hands of the right animator, it can be much more than that. Just like a lot of logos when they are designed right, they communicate the right message about the company, Logo Animations can do that and much more, in just a few seconds, a little story or a message can be communicated, and that's what we set out to do with this project. We studied the companies sign making process and realized we could create the same process of cutting a 2d logo from a board and have it extrude outwards to show the process of their work. As soon as we started we realized we needed to tweak the clients design to accommodate our new concept, after a quick consultation and presentation of our ideas with the client, our idea was approved.
Since their original logo was created in 3D, as shown above in fig. 1, we had to recreate the flat version first. This was an easy step for our designers to create, as you can see in Fig. 2. We also adjusted the company name layout and the font to make it more legible.
3D Logo Sample before animation
Once we designed the flat version, we imported into our 3D software and created a 3D version of the logo as seen shown above, and once again we presented the sample to the client for color, texture and lighting approval. Once the final 3d version was approved, we set out to animate the logo.
Final Animation sample
Creating a loop animation
To create a gif animation for the web and for email signature, the animation has to loop but without being distracting to the visitor's eye. In the loop, we had to find a smooth transition to have a continuous loop and also create a chance for the logo to make its impression. For the transition we had to find a way for the logo to start all over again, to do this, we simply created a rotation at the end of the main animation. Once the logo rotated 180 degrees, the logo animation would start again, this was a simple yet appropriate solution. The rotation was not distracting and did not take away from the main focus of the message.
Pausing Logo Animation to reinforce the company identity
The logo needed to pause to showcase its original design, to create that impression, we had to pause the logo for 3 seconds when the logo animation came to full completion. After 3 seconds the animation resumes to its loop.
The Logo Animation Story
To explain the companies process of sign making, we simply animated the process on their logo, we showed how a board gets cut out and pulled out to its final shape. This was a very simple, direct and a smooth way of explaining their specialty without being too technical about its displayed in the animation.