2D Charity Animation - Westminster Foundation

The Brief

For this 2D charity animation project we had the very exciting opportunity to collaborate with the Westminster Foundation, an independent grant making trust and charity that provides sustainable help to vulnerable young people.

The foundation works by partnering with organisations that support families, schools, and local communities so that problems are tackled before they escalate.

For this project the foundation was after an informative and engaging 2D charity animation that would drive awareness for their early intervention work and in giving young people a solid structure and foundation of support.

Our Response

We created a powerful and engaging 2D charity animation that showcased the positive impact that the Westminster Foundation has on young people and the support it offers. Our creative approach focused on showing exactly how the Westminster Foundation can help disadvantaged young people to thrive through their early intervention support and funding.

We began the animation by establishing the many reasons that young people may be in need of support, including poor community funding, systemic failures and a lack of high quality services available. The animation then transitions into showing how the Westminster Foundation can help through their early intervention work within communities – building better lives through solid foundations.

As the charity is aimed at supporting young people, we decided on a youthful and fun animation to counterbalance the serious subject matter of at-risk youth. We began with incorporating the vibrant and colorful branding of the Westminster Foundation into our animation and brainstorming the most appropriate animation design for our range of 2D characters.

The character animation was developed by our expert 2D animation team, who relished the creative task of creating a community of characters for the project. We wanted characters that felt both warm and endearing and so choose a cartoon style with circular heads, hands and simplistic movements. We decided on this creative approach to appeal to the young audience that the Westminster Foundation is looking to reach.

The charity works to embrace diversity and inclusion, so we decided on creating the characters in different shapes, sizes, skin tones and ethnicities. This helped make the animation relatable to the audience and accurately reflect the wide range of people that the Westminster Foundation supports with their charity work and funding.

2D Charity Animation Video

Early development & Storyboard thumbs

As can be seen in the early stages of our creative process, we began with simple sketches to get our ideas down on paper and creative juices flowing. This is how our story began to develop and you can see how the 2D charity animation began to take shape!

Rather than a central character and narrative, the animation features a diverse array of characters with the voiceover narration to lead the story. One of the biggest challenges of the project was ensuring that the animation struck the right balance in conveying both the seriousness of the issues vulnerable young people face whilst retaining a positive and heartwarming feel for the audience to engage with.

Static Animation Style

We wanted to drive home the message that the Westminster Foundation is here to help in a way that would leave a lasting impression on the audience. The story structure and animation were chosen to depict a sense of community and belonging. From the young 2D characters’ interactions with their parents and community to the array of colourful characters coming together for the final frame, we wanted the audience to come away feeling uplifted and in no doubt that with the Westminster Foundation is here for young people who need it most.

Social snippets

Not only did we create the brand video but we then repurposed the animation into fun GIFS to be used in a variety of different ways to promote the foundation. We also made three 15 second social media animations to drive more engagement and awareness for the charity across all delivery channels and get the Westminster Foundation’s important message out to the wider world.

This was an incredibly rewarding project to be a part of and here at the Animation Guys we delight in working with charities on worthwhile projects with such an important message to share. So we hope you enjoy this charity animation just as much as we loved creating it!

What our client Said

“Producing our first ever animated video was a scary proposition and uncharted territory for us as an agency. Working with The Animation Guys they put us at ease, listened to our ideas and made the process come to life. They’re genuinely decent, honest and hard-working people that ultimately produce first-class animation videos. We couldn’t be happier with our final product and no doubt will return to them for a follow up video at some point! Fully recommend.”

Beth Hellowell

Managing Partner @ Signify Digital