I was contracted by Canopy Health to animate their logo that would serve as an intro to some videos they were producing. Like most projects, I started with storyboards and sketches in order to illustrate my concept to the client.
These are some of the fastest boards I've ever drawn. There was no point in making the drawings more detailed. I just needed to show the concept and how motion would happen within the frame.
I like to use two different colors; one for the actual elements which will appear on screen, and another to describe motion and to write notes with. Everyone is always really impressed with fancy arrows. Make sure to use a lot of those. It doesn't hurt to explain to your client that the arrows are just to show movement and won't actually appear in the final product.
If you're not using the client's actual fonts in your sketches, make sure to let them know you know or else they will always hyper focus on it and it'll be a huge waste of everyone's time.
Trust me on this. You don't want Debbie the digital marketing generalist to jump down your throat because you didn't use the approved typeface in their logotype. Yes, she just learned these terms in order to seem like she's qualified for her job, and, yes, she will use them ad nauseam in order to sound like she's on your level.
Besides animating their logo, I also needed to design three icons which would describe the Bay Area, the idea of a network, and healthcare. I like to avoid cliche imagery, but when each icon has about one second of screen time cliche isn't bad. People can easily read and translate icons that they've seen a million times. They're called iconic for a reason. Plus it makes it super easy to find stock graphics online.
Just because you're using imagery that's been used a million times doesn't mean it has to be dull, drab, or platitudinous! Thankfully, they had a nice gradient in their color palette. They eventually wanted an outline version of each icon featuring the gradient within. Had I known that from the beginning I would have designed them differently. I'm not super stoked on how the bridge looks as an outline, but what can you do?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Here is the final video. I added some SFX to the animation. I feel it makes the movement seem a lot more purposeful and makes the video feel more complete. It wasn't asked for, but it didn't take much time either. The client loved it.
In order to get an idea of what is too "cartoony" for a client, I like to go a little overboard. Add some bounciness and swooshes. Sometimes it's what they want, or, just as importantly, it's not what they want at all. Also, the client couldn't quite envision how the icons would spin like a coin so I needed to draft up a quick proof of concept.